
Book ASA5 

CopjTight i\" 



COraRICHT DEPOSC. 



WORKING WITH GOD 



OR 



THE STORY OF A TWENTY-FIVE YEAR 
PASTORATE IN BALTIMORE 



BY 

PETER AINSLIE, D.D., LL.D. 



'We are God's fellow-workers, . . . " — Paul 



ILLUSTRATED 



ST. LOUIS 
CHRISTIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION 



^^<> 



Copyright, 1917 

CHRISTIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION 

St. Louis, Mo. 



DEC 27 1317 



©CLA481142 



o 



TO 



THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN MY FELLOW-WORKERS — MEN, 

WOMEN AND CHILDREN — DURING THE 

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OP MY MINISTRY 

IN BALTIMORE 

THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED. 



PREFACE 



With some hesitation I have written this story of 
the twenty-five years of my ministry in Baltimore. In 
complying with this request of some friends, I have 
tried to tell of those things about which some have 
inquired, leaving many things untold. I have tried 
to hide myself as much as one could in telling his own 
story, but I have tried to tell it as though I were 
seated in a drawing room surrounded by a group of 
friends who wanted to know something of the prob- 
lems of a preacher in a big Eastern city and how God 
helped him in the consummation of some of his ideals. 

In the reading of the proof pages I would like to 
acknowledge my indebtedness to Finis S. Idleman, 
who read all the proof ; to H. C. Armstrong and C. S. 
Ehlers, who read parts of it; and to my secretaries 
for their assistance. 

P. A. 

Seminary House, Baltimore, Md. 



G)ntents 



PAGE 
INTEODUCTOET 

I, The Minister and the Ministry 11 



PART ONE 

II. My First Years in Baltimore 23 

III. The Formative Years 45 

IV. The Formative Years (Continued) .... 65 
V. The Christian Temple 85 

VI. The Christian Temple (Continued) . , . 107 

VII. The Branch Churches 123 

VIII. The Orphanage Society 145 

IX. Seminary House and the Girls ^ Club . . 161 

PART TWO 

X. With Books and Periodicals 177 

XI. Around the Court-House 197 

XII. Amid Services and Ceremonies 211 

XIII. Observing a Day for Rest and Worship . . 227 

XIV. With Sacred Paintings and Painters . . . 243 
XV. An Evening With the Jews 263 

XVI. The Negro 's Cause 279 

XVII. Christian Unity 297 

XVIII. Christian Unity (Continued) 315 

XIX. International Peace 333 

XX. The Witness 355 

CONCLUSION 

XXI. Twenty-fifth ANNivBaisAEY Sermon .... 371 



INTRODUCTORY 



Have You a Castle? 



Everybody should have a castle, built so high 
upon the mountain, peaks of the mind that the 
meaner self cannot climb to its heights, and so 
fortified that the approaches are guarded by white 
winged messengers from above. 

There run occasionally for rest out of the toil 
and vexations of life, as well as for a calm look 
upon the entangled problems of the world, that 
you may find where to lose yourself for the good 
of others. 

If you have not built such a castle, build it 
at once. Find the highest moimtain in your 
mind — one of those that reaches highest into the 
blue vault of thought — and fortify as you build. 

If your place in life lies mostly with those 
minds that are low and marshy, whence arises 
the malaria of discontent, lust, suspicion and un- 
love, build your castle quickly and so protect 
your mountain passes that approaches to it will 
be impossible except to yourself and the angels 
that minister there. 

Then you wiU be patient in the midst of the 
strife of the lower souls, you will do good to 
those who have wronged you, and your pity for 
aU shall lie like a beam of light upon every face 
into which you shall look. The needs of every 
one shall come before you like the pathetic cry 
of the helpless infant, and your castle life shall 
make you a brother to all mankind. 



10 



I 

The Minister and the Ministry 



I used to hear my father say that if he had a dozen 
sons he would try to make them all ministers of the 
Gospel. In that atmosphere I came to believe that 
there is no service superior to that of the ministry 
when it is crowded with toil, hardship, faith and love. 
Such a ministry has in it those ideals that enrich the 
pages of the Scriptures and bears the marks of apos- 
tolicity beyond that which can be bestowed by coun- 
cils or creeds. The romance of the ministry has al- 
ways charmed me. I saw in it the best service 
that one could render to God and to his fellows be- 
cause it is '^tJie ministry of reconciliation/^ reconcil- 
ing the world to God — the most stupendous task that 
was ever given to mortal man. 

It has its difficulties — great difficulties. The min- 
ister labors in the field of spiritual values, contending 
with his brothers against the works of the flesh, which 
are ^^fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, 
sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousies, wraths, factions, 
divisions, parties, envyings, drunkenness, revellings, 
and such like;" at the same time contending with 
equal earnestness in cultivating the fruit of the Spirit, 
which is "love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, 
goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control.'* The 

11 



12 WORKING WITH GOD 

transferring of the trend of one's life from the works 
of the flesh to the fruit of the Spirit is the only hope 
of the world. The only path to that highway of holi- 
ness is Jesus Christ, who said, *^I am tJie way, and 
the truth, and the life; no one cometh unto the Fa- 
ther, hut by Me.^^ The minister's task is to win men 
to Christ and then to teach them the art of cultivating 
the fruit of the Spirit. Against this there are rebel- 
lious dispositions, unconquered sins, unsatisfactory re- 
sults, meagre financial remunerations and the burdens 
of the multitude. Nevertheless there is a blessedness 
in the privilege of standing in the midst of discord 
and strife, which cover the whole earth, and not only 
proclaim the friendliness of God, but carry pardon 
and peace into man's troubled heart. 

It is the greatest transaction ever done between one 
soul and another, burnishing hope in the bosom of de- 
spondency, pouring sympathy into barren hearts, 
strengthening faith to nobler tasks in the world of 
strife and leaving the light of grace by the couch of 
the dying to meet the light of the eternal morning. 
The minister may roam through every field of thought 
and industry and, if he thinks and feels, his thoughts 
may become the very voice of infinite wisdom, consum- 
mating the amelioration of mankind. He combats evil 
with the genius of the living truth and, if needs be, 

"He liurls his life against the pikes and dies," 

but his ministry, if he has ministered aright, is strong 
and sacred as he listens to God 's message in the prayer- 
ful reading of the Word and goes to the call of a 
suffering brotherhood, whose heart cannot be at ease 



THE MINISTER AND THE MINISTRY 13 

until it has found the companionship of God. I do 
not believe that it is fanciful to say that angels hover 
over him as he goes, as they do over all who go on the 
mission of God. If we could hear as the shepherds 
heard on the hills of Judaea, the song would be 

* ' Glory to God in the highest, 
And on earth peace among men in whom 
He is well pleased." 

But the minister is only a man. He talks like a 
man, or he ought to ; he dresses like a man and walks 
like a man among men; he stands on a level with all 
mankind and with them looks up to God through 
Jesus Christ our Lord. A dozen hands of consecra- 
tion upon his head will not add one whit to his holi- 
ness. He must find that in his transactions with God 
and in his companionship with his fellows. He makes 
his mistakes and sometimes egregious blunders; he 
contends in the arena with all the temptations common 
to man, and the fiercest contention is against the 
treachery of his own heart and will; he has his dis- 
couragements and sometimes his heart breaks down 
with his own burdens. After listening patiently 
through several long sittings to a conversation that 
had to do with a deep sorrow in the life of one of my 
flock, I was asked, "To whom do you go with your 
burdens?" If not in a direct manner such as this, 
the same interrogation has driven many a minister 
into the holy of holies until the transactions between 
his heart and that of the great Burden Bearer are as 
real as between personal friends in the quiet of a 
closet conference. 



14 WORKING WITH GOD 

What a satisfaction to talk over problems of deep 
concern with one who is sympathetic and patient ! To 
this ministry the minister must ever give himself with- 
out reserve. He cannot repeat in one home what he 
hears in another, unless it be some conversation of sec- 
ondary consequence. He is a member of each home 
and, as such, he is the guardian of as much of its in- 
ner life as comes to him. He is sometimes the cus- 
todian of griefs and burdens that only one heart be- 
sides his own knows and that is the heart that has 
made the trust. There he must know how to guide 
the stumbling feet of a wavering faith to the place of 
prayer for comfort and hope. It has been well said, 
* ' On no man are more bui'dens laid by troubled hearts 
than on a minister. He is constantly a man of com- 
fort and courage. Men who wear a smooth face be- 
fore other men show a furrowed one to him. Homes 
that show only happiness and peace before the world 
show him their closet with its skeleton. In sickness, 
the doctor is called, but so is the minister, and if death 
comes it is the minister who stays to make the after 
days bearable. In trouble, the lawyer is called, but 
so is the minister, and after the case is settled the min- 
ister remains to ease defeat or to steady in victory. 
Absent children, business anxiety, failing health or 
powers, intimate needs too sacred to share with other 
closest friends, are his familiar concerns. If he has 
gained from his people the confidence he ought to 
have, he is the chief burden bearer of the community. ' ' 
At scores of such places he must stand — and stand not 
in his strength but in that of the living God, minister- 
ing as best he can at the altar of human need. 



THE MINISTER AND THE MINISTRY 15 

On my first vacation from college, I preached one 
Sunday morning at the Baptist Church in the village 
of my Virginia home, I had just passed my twentieth 
year and I somewhat doubt that I should call what I 
said on that occasion by the dignified term of a ser- 
mon^ but the minister, who was advanced in years, 
was very friendly with my father during the latter 's 
lifetime. In consequence of this friendship, he showed 
me some courtesies that encouraged me in those days. 
None was more helpful than his presentation to me on 
the day after my sermon of a copy of ''An Earnest 
Ministry the Want of the Times," by John Angell 
James, published in 1850. This copy was its fourth 
edition. I read it through the next day, marking in 
the first chapter the following quotation: ''No min- 
istry will be really effective, whatever may be its in- 
telligence, which is not a ministry of strong faith, true 
spirituality and deep earnestness.'' Those elements 
forthwith became a challenge to me and at the same 
time they loomed up like great mountains in my path- 
way. I have been discouraged a thousand times in 
my dream to climb to their costly heights, but I have 
never been able to get away from the picture flung 
upon my mind by that sentence. It is indeed the way 
to an effective ministry, carrying with it all the cost 
that the best things demand. I have seen so many men 
lose God in sermon making, as the scientist loses Hiim 
in his search of nature, that from my earliest preach- 
ing I have sought to guard myself and made prepar- 
ing my heart more important than preparing my 
mind. 

The great wide fields of ripe harvests call for labor- 



16 WORKING WITH GOD 

ers — true, brave, industrious, clean-hearted men, who 
have caught the fire from the burning heart of infinite 
love, upon whose lips have been laid a live coal from 
God's altar and who live in the light of great distances. 
There are thousands of noble men in the pulpits of all 
communions, struggling with untold problems and 
struggling hopefully in the very face of defeat — men 
who have buried all hope of worldly ambition and 
fame, men who have made their closets sanctuaries of 
prayer, men who count not their lives dear unto them 
and men of whom the world is not worthy. I wish I 
had the liberty to tell some of their experiences in 
these pages, for their experiences would far exceed 
in interest and profit what I have set out to do as re- 
lates to the twenty-five years of my ministry in Balti- 
more. The joy of service has wiped away the tears of 
sorrow from their faces, the presence of God has sent 
a waveless peace over their souls, and the changeless 
light of the other world has struck the face of the man 
who is living for God. 

The ministry has so combined the intellectual and 
the moral that we can go through no period of the 
history of the last two thousand years that does not 
bear some impression of the influence of the minister 
of the Gospel. The larger work has been done by the 
few; the smaller work has been left to the many. 
Canon Farrar said, ' ' Not to one man in ten thousand, 
barely, perhaps, to one man in a generation, it is 
granted to stand forth like a heavenly archer, and 
hurl into the dark heart arrows of lightnings; to 
wield, with no feeble hand, the Word of God as that 



THE MINISTER AND THE MINISTRY 17 

which indeed it is — a sword to pierce, a flame to 
scathe, a hammer to dash in pieces the flinty heart : 

'To preach as one who ne'er should preach again, 
And as a dying man to dying men.' " 

A smaller life may be no less strong and, in a 
similar sense, no less great. Most of us are as the 
' ' infinitesimal ripple made on an immeasurable ocean 
by the touch of an insect's wing," but that does not 
prevent our contribution, small as it may be, taking 
its place by the side of all those forces that have helped 
in the betterment of mankind. The presence of a 
minister of righteousness in every age has been like 
' ' the dew of God falling upon the soul. ' ' Jewish his- 
tory before Christ might appropriately be divided into 
Noachian and Mosaic periods — epochs made by the 
greatest ministers of Old Testament mention. See 
Elijah before Ahab, Daniel before Belshazzar, John 
before Herod, Paul before Agrippa, Ignatius before 
Trajan, Huss before Sigismund, Ambrose before Theo- 
dosius, Savonarola before Lorenzo de Medici, Luther 
before Charles and Knox before Mary! Then read 
history in the light of these ministers and it will not 
be difficult to find their places in the civilization of 
the world. 

The seeds of American liberty were gathered on the 
other side of the Atlantic from events made sacred by 
some minister's voice. Behold Basil pleading before 
Emperor Valens for those oppressed by the civil 
power, or Chrysostom defending his fallen enemy 
Eutropius before the wrath of Arcadius and Eudoxia, 
or Calvin proclaiming the principles of representative 



18 WORKING WITH GOD 

government! The minister of the Gospel built the 
looms from which came the Stars and Stripes. To 
read the history of Germany from Boniface, the his- 
tory of England from Augustine, or the history of 
America from Williams and Edwards is to find the 
footprints of the ministers of the Gospel in every 
epoch of these histories. 

The minister 's power lies in his oneness with God, 
as the Apostle Peter said of the ministers in his day, 
^'TJiey preached tJie Gospel unto you hy tTie Holy 
Spirit sent fortJi from Jieaven.^' ''The true minister," 
said A. J. Gordon, ''does not simply use the Spirit; 
he is used by the Spirit. He speaks as one moving in 
the element and atmosphere of the Holy Spirit and 
mastered by His Divine power." Paul said, *'My 
speech and my preaching were not in persuasive words 
of wisdom, hut in demonstration of the Spirit and of 
power." Again Dr. Gordon said, "Our generation 
is rapidly losing its grip upon the supernatural ; and 
as a consequence the pulpit is rapidly dropping to the 
level of the platform. This decline is due, we believe, 
more than anything else, to an ignoring of the Holy 
Spirit as the supreme inspirer of preaching. We want 
to see a great orator in the pulpit, forgetting that the 
least expounder of the Word, when filled with the 
Holy Spirit, is greater than he. We want the Gospel, 
forsooth ; but in the strenuous demand that it be set 
forth according to 'the spirit of the age,' we ignore 
the supremacy of 'the Spirit of God.' " Since the 
day of Pentecost, we have been under the administra- 
tion of the Holy Spirit. "To him in the Divine 
economy," said Henry Edward Manning, "has been 



THE MINISTER AND THE MINISTRY 19 

committed the office of applying the redemption of 
the Son to the souls of men by the vocation, justifica- 
tion and salvation of the elect. We are, therefore, 
under the personal guidance of the Third Person, as 
truly as the apostles were under the guidance of the 
Second." It is a marvelous programme, which God 
has launched for the redemption of the lost world and 
in its performance, Isaiah, speaking of Christ, de- 
clared, ^'He will not fail nor he discouraged.'' The 
minister and his ministry may not always be that fac- 
tor in its consummation as designed by God when He 
committed this to men, but there are multitudes of 
ministers whose ministries are shadows of Divine holi- 
ness. Both of these and to these I say in the words 
of Whittier: 



'Priest of God, thy mission is 
But to make earth's desert glad, 
In its Eden greenness clad! 

'And to level manhood bring 
Lord and peasant, serf and king, 
And the Cross of Christ to find 
In the humblest of thy kind! 

' Thine to work as well as pray. 
Clearing thorny wrongs away; 
Plucking up the weeds of sin, 
Letting heaven's warm sunshine in. 

' Watching on the hills of faith. 
Listening what the Spirit saith. 
Of the dim seen light afar. 
Growing like a nearing star. 

'God's interpreter art thou 
To the waiting ones below; 
'Twixt them and its light midway. 
Heralding the better day. 



20 WORKING \VITH GOD 

'' Catching gleams of temple spires, 
Hearing notes of angel choirs, 
Where, as yet unseen of them, 
Comes the New Jerusalem! 

' ' Like the seer of Patmos gazing, 
On the glory downward blazing; 
Till upon earth's grateful sod, 
Rests the city of our God. ' ' 



PART ONE 



A Prayer 



Thou hast again lighted the hours of time, 
and it is another day, with its cares, irritations 
and opportunities. Make us to live in sympa- 
thy — Thyself and me — that I may follow Thee 
in the downward steps of self-denial and may 
know the nearness of Thyself and the beauty of 
myself forgotten in my thoughts of Thee and 
those about me. Give to me health of soul, clear- 
ness of vision and strength of mind that I may 
be calm amid vexations, hopeful amid discour- 
agements and faithful however faithless others 
may be. Help me that I may see the open door 
although other doors may be closed, that I may 
never forget the path to the unfailing fountain 
and that I may practice Thy presence in order to 
be used by Thee through the day and to go to 
my bed undishonored by sin when my body is 
weary with sleep. Teach me forgiveness, con- 
tentment and peace and we shall not have walked 
the way in vain, for Thou still art God and I a 
sinner saved by grace. Amen. 

— From God and Me. 



22 



II 

My First Years in Baltimore 



' ' Surely you are not so foolish as to think of going 
to Baltimore — that great Roman Catholic city with 
its Eastern conservatism — and bury yourself with an 
obscure and struggling church, when there are other 
fields inviting you which are more promising and re- 
munerative?" So inquired my friends in the sum- 
mer of 1891 when it became known among them that 
I was thinking of accepting an invitation to the min- 
istry of the Third Church in Baltimore. 

The church had a membership of less than a hun- 
dred. It was self-supporting as it had been from the 
start, when three years before a division arose in the 
Harlem Avenue Church. Thirty-three persons with- 
drew and formed an independent congregation, 
employing a minister immediately on their or- 
ganization — first James Vernon, then Thomas Mun- 
nell, both well known and highly esteemed. For two 
years they met in a hall. Then a Lutheran gentle- 
man, whose wife was a member of the church, pur- 
chased for them a building site and they forthwith 
erected the church edifice. It was a daring venture. 
They appealed to the state and national missionary 
boards of the Disciples for assistance, but for some 
reason their application was rejected by both boards. 
Perhaps the boards did not have the money or they 

23 



24 WORKING VaTB. GOD 

may not have considered it a promising field. How- 
ever the rejection had so incensed the Third Church 
that they had never taken an offering for missions of 
any kind. Their building was heavily in debt, its 
mortgage being very nearly the full value of the prop- 
erty. The people were in moderate circumstances, 
many, however, possessing fine, stalwart characters 
that are usually more valuable assets in the affairs of 
a church than money. I did not know what salary 
they had been paying their minister. In fact the sub- 
ject of salary had not been mentioned. The audiences 
were small and internal troubles somewhat marred the 
unity of the little flock. I was not particularly anx- 
ious to go, but somehow I felt that hard places are 
where men are needed and that it was God's will for 
me to go. 

I was twenty-four years old and not very strong 
physically, but I carried in my bosom a definite and 
costly programme of church work, which I had gotten 
from reading the Scriptures and missionary literature. 
A finished church did not appeal to me. I had no de- 
sire for a made pulpit, however elegant and remunera- 
tive it might be. I wanted to make my own pulpit ir- 
respective of its cost. I thought I saw in the Third 
Church an opportunity if I would be willing to pay 
the price, remembering that it had been said, '^God 
cJwse tlie weak things of tJie world, tliat He miglit put 
to sliame tJie tilings tliat are strong; and the base 
things of the world, and the things that are despised, 
did God choose, yea, and the things that are not, that 
He might hring to nought the things that are; tliat no 
flesh should glory before God." I faced the task 



MY FIRST YEARS IN BALTIMORE 25 

squarely and looked through the years, feeling assured 
that if I accomplished anything in Baltimore, certain- 
ly the glory would belong to God and the satisfaction 
of having been His servant would be mine. 

Several influences contributed to my decision. 
While a student in the College of the Bible, associated 
with Transylvania College, Lexington, Kentucky, I 
became deeply concerned about offering myself as a 
foreign missionary. One morning as three of us 
walked down the corridor at the close of the senior 
English class, we decided to approach the President 
on the subject. I was twenty-two. The other stu- 
dents were ten years my senior and were strong, ro- 
bust men. The President was a college mate of my 
father in Bethany College and he had shown some in- 
terest in me. He approved of the others, but he ad- 
vised against my making a decision at that time be- 
cause of my youth and uncertain health. I yielded 
to his superior judgment, but my purpose remained 
unchanged and I decided then to put my life into an 
American field that would be as difficult as one in a 
foreign land. I could not think of undertaking an 
easy ministry for Christ. 

Another consideration was my mother. My fa- 
ther died during my first year in college, when I was 
nineteen, leaving my mother and sister on a farm near 
the Rappahannock River in Virginia. A white man 
lived on the farm with his family and cultivated it, 
but the isolation and loneliness of my mother and 
sister, especially in the long winter months, had been 
a constant care to me and I wished to be near them, or 
have them with me, as I afterwards did. Boats plied 



26 WORKING VnTB. GOD 

nearly every day between Baltimore and the Rappa- 
hannock River, making Baltimore the most convenient 
city to my home. My mother, however, left me to 
decide whether I should go to Baltimore. 

And still another consideration was Johns Hop- 
kins University. Because of broken health I had left 
college without completing my course of study. I was 
confined to my bed for more than a month preceding 
the final examinations of the third year. Against the 
President's protest, I appeared in the class rooms on 
the day of the examinations, took them all and left 
that night for Virginia. For months I was quite an 
invalid. When I sufficiently improved I went to New- 
port News, Virginia, preaching temporarily for the 
church there and at the same time having the advan- 
tage of being under the care of a well-known physician 
who resided there. Baltimore appeared to furnish 
just the educational opportunity I desired and it was 
80 emphasized by the Third Church as a special in- 
ducement, but before the year was out I saw that it 
was unfair to a city church, however small it might 
be, to attempt to be its minister and at the same time 
to take regular university work. When the university 
authorities observed the growth of the Third Church, 
I was strongly advised that if it were my purpose to 
remain in the ministry, I should abandon the regular 
and technical university work, keeping in touch, how- 
ever, with the university in its courses of special lec- 
tures and give all of my time to the church. Although 
conforming to this advice, at first I did not like it, 
but before many years had passed, I saw the wisdom 



MY FIRST YEARS IN BALTIMORE 27 

of it. Such were the considerations and some of the 
results that caused me to go to Baltimore. 

On the first Sunday in October, 1891, I preached 
my first sermon there as minister. I made it a kind 
of installation utterance, although it was not an in- 
stallation service, but with some timidity I sought to 
emphasize that a local church had not attained its 
rightful place except it expressed its life through the 
channels of missions, education and benevolences, 
thereby creating character, which is the chief purpose 
of the church. The sermon did not appear to make 
much impression on the audience, for many of them 
felt that those ideals were expressed in loyalty to their 
local church, which is a common understanding of 
churches in this day that have not comprehended the 
purpose of their existence. Perhaps it was improper 
to preach such a sermon on such an occasion. It at 
least struck a note that found a response in my own 
heart and I was the preacher. To my own heart I 
must be true. The delivery of the sermon, however, 
was so unsatisfactory to me that a few days after I 
destroyed the notes. 

That afternoon the official board met and it was 
decided that my salary should be eight hundred dol- 
lars, which was six hundred dollars less than they had 
paid their first minister and four hundred less than 
they had paid their last minister, as they explained, 
but that was neither here nor there, for from the con- 
dition of their finances it looked exceedingly doubtful 
whether they would be able to pay that. At the end 
of the year, however, they increased it to twelve hun- 
dred dollars, where it remained for some years, but it 



28 WORKING ^VITH GOD 

was paid so irregularly, and sometimes not at all, that 
stating a specified amount made very little difference. 
They had already fought off several lawsuits and their 
mortgage was in a building association with weekly 
payments — the most expensive kind of debt to carry. 
It was announced in the board meeting that a small 
debt was pressing them and I suggested that we raise 
the money right there in the board, for there was no 
money in the treasury, at the same time handing my 
contribution of five dollars to the treasurer. I was 
forthwith informed that the ladies would raise the 
money in a few days by a bazaar or oyster supper, 
bringing tc my attention another issue that I would 
have to meet at the proper time, for oyster suppers, 
fairs, musical and literary entertainments have always 
been degenerating methods by which Christians raise 
money for the Lord's work. That evening a larger 
audience was present than in the morning and a 
man came forward to renew his covenant with 
Christ, taking membership with the church. So closed 
the first Sunday of my ministry at the Third Church, 
presenting problems that appeared to be beyond my 
reach for solution, but I was only a workman, promis- 
ing to labor together with God. 

Baltimore is one of the most densely populated 
cities in America for the area covered, exceeded only 
by New York and Chicago. I believed that I was the 
bearer of the Gospel message and I did not propose 
to deliver my messages to empty pews, when my 
church was located in such a densely populated city. 
I wrote off the copy for a handbill. This was printed 
and a large package of them was sent to the church. 



MY FIRST YEARS IN BALTIMORE 29 

In the midst of the discussion as to how they should 
be distributed so as to conform to the Baltimore cus- 
tom of church advertising, I told the committee that 
I would distribute them myself. They looked sur- 
prised at what they regarded as an undignified serv- 
ice for a minister. But I went out one afternoon, ty- 
ing those handbills on telephone poles and every- 
where else where they should not have been placed. 
Soon a policeman came hurriedly down the street, for- 
bidding my advertising in that fashion. Our con- 
versation brought together a crowd of boys eager to 
know what was the issue. To them I gave several 
thousand handbills for distribution. Sunday the 
church was full and it stayed so. For years after, 
during the winter months, the Southwestern Police 
Station appointed this same policeman to the Third 
Church every Sunday evening to prevent overcrowd- 
ing, the building, however, accommodating only about 
three hundred and fifty persons. 

I began to plan at once for an evangelistic meeting, 
the usual custom being for some other preacher than 
the minister to do the preaching, but in later years I 
found by experience that the most successful meetings 
are those which the minister holds himself. Fully a 
dozen preachers, however, were written to in this in- 
stance, but they all declined to come, whereupon the 
church insisted that I should do it, but I objected. 
Up to that time I had held a few meetings in the 
rural districts and small towns, but I was not sure 
that I could hold a meeting in a big city, where meet- 
ings sometimes covered several weeks, for my stock of 
sermons was limited. During my first college vaca- 



30 WORKING WITH GOD 

tion when I was twenty years old, I went across the 
river from my home in Virginia into Westmoreland 
County and held my first meeting in a plain little 
country church in the forest, near the birthplace of 
George Washington. I had only four sermons for the 
occasion and did not expect much of a meeting, but 
to my surprise and confusion, the interest was good 
and a considerable number of persons made their de- 
cision for Christ. The people desired the meeting to 
continue, but to my mortification I had to acknowledge 
that the sermon supply was exhausted and I hurried 
back home without so much as baptizing the new con- 
verts. A few days after, however, I returned and did 
this. I did not want to repeat any such experience 
as this in my new pastorate, so I explained to the 
church the difficulty in the way of a young preacher 's 
holding his own meeting. But there was nothing else 
for me to do or else have no meeting. So, with much 
fear and trembling I opened the campaign. 

The meeting continued for little more than four 
weeks. The sermons gave out, but the interest so in- 
creased that I found little difficulty in preparing new 
sermons every day. Ninety persons came into the 
church, about doubling the membership. I took this 
as God's witness to my ministry there, for ^'No man 
can say Jesus is Lord, hut in the Holy Spirit.' ' This 
was followed in the spring by another meeting that 
brought in many more, so that by the end of the first 
year one hundred and twenty-six new members had 
been added to the church. In the midst of these bless- 
ings troubles arose in the church which gave me much 
concern. My health failed and it looked as if my min- 



MY FIRST YEARS IN BALTIMORE 31 

istry was about to terminate, which had been marked 
by my ordination on May 8, 1892. The physician ad- 
vised that I take an absolute rest for the entire sum- 
mer at the Greenbrier White Sulphur Springs in West 
Virginia, remarking to some of my friends as I left 
the city, ' ' I doubt if you ever see him again except in 
a box." However, by the fall I had gained some 
strength and returned to the city. The report of my 
first year showed that in spite of my illness, I had 
made more than five hundred calls, seeing more than 
fifteen hundred people in their homes, preached one 
hundred and eighteen sermons, delivered one hundred 
and five addresses and attended eighty other meetings, 
besides writing numerous articles for the papers. My 
first series of tracts appeared that year. 

The second year was attended with many vexing 
problems. New members were added, but so many of 
the older members left through the revival of old 
quarrels, that the Third Church was about where it 
was when I first came, which was such a discouraging 
condition that when I got into my third year with no 
cessation of these difficulties, I began to consider seri- 
ously whether I had not made a mistake in coming to 
Baltimore. I did not so much as hint my thoughts 
to anyone until one evening I was invited to the home 
of Captain W. J. Bohannon to meet with some of the 
officers to talk over church affairs. The captain was a 
remarkable man. He was the master of the largest 
steamer in the Old Bay Line fleet and was ready to 
discuss the Scriptures on his steamer or elsewhere 
with Eoman Catholics or Protestants, being always 
able to give a reason for his hope. He had been the 



32 WORKING WITH GOD 

ruling elder of this flock from the start, sometimes 
preaching on Sundays and periodically superintend- 
ing the Sunday-school. I was always obedient to his 
rulings, whether I agreed with him or not, never so 
much as leaving the city for a day mthout informing 
him or one of the other elders, nor did I make any 
move in the church without consulting the eldership, 
whose cordial cooperation I always had. I had been 
reared to obedience and to know the necessity of 
order. 

The occasion of this meeting, however, was to in- 
form me that it was the sense of this committee that 
I should be the ruling elder in the Third Church, 
which came as a very unexpected proposition. I not 
only felt my unfitness for the position, especially be- 
cause of my years and lack of experience, but I did 
not care to serve in that capacity with the difficult 
problems that surrounded us. I then informed the 
committee that I was thinking of leaving because of 
the unsatisfactory conditions, nor did I see how those 
conditions could be bettered by making me the ruling 
elder, but in courtesy to their insistence I promised 
that I would prayerfully consider it, giving them an 
answer in thirty days. At the time appointed we met 
and I informed the committee that while hesitating 
to name the conditions, I would remain, taking the 
position of ruling elder, provided all the officers of 
the church resigned and likewise all the officers in 
the various societies of the church, leaving me free, 
in consultation with a committee, to select such per- 
sons for the approval of the church as we thought 
proper. I expected these conditions to be immediately 



MY FIRST YEARS IN BALTIMORE 33 

rejected, making it easier for me to leave, but the 
committee agreed to my proposition with considerable 
enthusiasm, informing me that many in the church 
were asking for just such a change. The whole plan 
was stated to the church on the following Sunday and 
by a public vote accepted by them. The new officers 
of the church were selected for a term of three years. 
Prior to this time they had been selected for an in- 
definite period. The various societies were reorgan- 
ized, officers being selected for a term of one year, and 
in several instances no officers being allowed to suc- 
ceed themselves at the expiration of their term, 
especially in the Christian Endeavor Societies, where 
considerable friction had occurred in consequence of 
re-elections. This was a severe method of correcting 
abuses, but the people were back of it. It marked in 
many respects the best years up to that time in the 
history of the Third Church. 

Grreat problems still faced us, however. We were 
only at the beginning. The planting of a church in a 
large Eastern city is no easy task, nor can it be done 
in a day. I had much to learn, as did the people like- 
wise. Audiences were constantly changing, members 
were coming and going, the development of a congrega- 
tion out of its heterogeneity into homogeneity required 
time, patience and prayer. There was a willingness 
to learn and to do, but so few had that fine sense of 
fidelity developed at all. Many of the church officers 
could not see the necessity of their regular attendance 
on both services on Sunday, mid-week prayer-meeting 
and the monthly official board meetings, neither could 
the new officers in the various organizations and the 



34 WORKING WITH GOD 

Sunday-school teachers see their obligation to these 
public services. They seemed to have taken their 
positions as posts of honor and not service. They 
were out calling or receiving callers when their duty 
called them to public worship as it does every person 
who holds any kind of a position in the church. Some 
of them appeared not to have the slightest conscience 
on the subject, just so they attended one service on 
Sunday. They were always kind and courteous to me, 
which only added to my heartaches, reminding me 
either of my inability to teach them, or of there being 
no foundations in themselves upon which to build. 
I have valued personal friendship in my flock most 
when that friendship expressed itself in a finer loyalty 
to the church than to me. I will pass away, but the 
church will remain. This little legend, which I read 
when a boy, often came to my mind and helped me. 
A prince in one of the Grermanic tribes in the Middle 
Ages abdicated the throne because he could not man- 
age his subjects and took up clock making. One day 
he could not make a clock work and he said, ' ' What a 
fool I was to abdicate my throne because I could not 
make my subjects work with me and here I cannot 
even make the wheels of a clock work for me." 
Preachers sometimes have to be taught by the un- 
faithfulness of their flock before they are competent 
to teach the great lessons of faithfulness. I had set 
my heart to learn from every channel. Both the faith- 
ful and the unfaithful taught me lessons of value. 

Added to these trying conditions, our building was 
partly destroyed by fire in the winter of 1894, which 
necessitated moving our services to an incommodious 



MY FIRST YEARS IN BALTIMORE 35 

hall for four or five months. The audiences became 
scattered and troubles of various kinds surged to the 
front, so that amid our many blessings, adversities and 
difficulties abounded. To save my heart, I turned at 
this time to other channels of public service, for I felt 
I must occasionally find some other atmosphere to re- 
lieve the pressure of my burdens if I would stand at 
my post and live on the sunny side of the hill. On 
May 18, 1894, I sent forth the first copy of The 
Christian Tribune, which later became a sixteen page 
weekly paper, serving as the medium of communica- 
tion between the Disciples in the Atlantic Coast 
States. 

I found no little satisfaction in literary pursuits 
and spoke occasionally on literary themes. At one of 
the anniversaries of Edgar Allan Poe in Westminster 
Church, Baltimore, where he is buried, I was invited 
to make the address and I take the following excerpt 
from the address, which appeared in the city papers : 

' ' There is no life in all American literature that is 
so sad as that of Edgar Allan Poe. It appears like a 
tear upon the cheek of human genius. Whether we 
look at him as the orphan at six years old in the 
wealthy home of Mr. Allan, after whom he was named, 
and by whom he had been adopted, where he grew up 
like the rarest flower without the best attention of the 
florist; or, whether we look at him as the self-willed 
youth, leaving home, despite all entreaty, to take up 
arms against the Turks in defense of the Greeks, and 
against the Russians in defense of the Poles, neither 
of which he really did ; or whether we look at him as 
the editor, dipping his pen to his finger tips in gall 
as he wrote his reviews, and himself shivering beneath 



36 WORKING WITH GOD 

the slightest dart from another's pen; or whether we 
look at him as the dying poet, whose laurels gathered 
the dust of contempt, we are saddened at the sight of 
the wretched role he played under that weird shadow 
that reached from his cradle to his grave. He was a 
genius born, and held the embryo of greatness, but he 
moved through life like a ship whose crew never stood 
on watch, but tied the rudder amid the greatest storm, 
and then piped and danced till day died in the deep. 

' ' Literature never had a more ardent devotee than 
Edgar Allan Poe; indeed, to him literature was re- 
ligion, and he worshiped at its shrine. He borrowed 
immortality from religion, and, in his verses, he wrote 
his life, and he who reads the words of the poet-dream- 
er, reads the biography of the melancholy man. His 
great ability in the mechanism of composition placed 
him more than once as the master among critics, and 
when from his wonderful brain came ' The Raven, ' for 
the first time English critics lifted their hats to 
American genius, and the literati from both sides of 
the Atlantic crowned him prince of the poets of his 
day; but the star, shining so brightly, was eclipsed, 
and died in the distant clouds. His life, so richly 
endowed, spanned only two score years, and his 
friends and enemies have clashed arms over his grave. 
They who hated him most have erected over him a 
monument of contempt, and they who loved him best 
have laid their garlands of affection upon his scarred 
memory. Be the charges against him true or false, I 
deplore that, in spite of contradictions, upon his name 
rests the stigma of a gambler and a drunkard, for Ed- 
gar Allan Poe, in the language of an English reviewer, 
was for a time Hhe most brilliant genius of his coun- 
try. ' The harp of his soul was fit to be touched only 
by angels' hands, but demons burst through the door 
and smote the chords, turning darkness upon day. ' ' 

I was also interested in problems at large, espe- 
cially those having to do with social justice. In 1894 



MY FIRST YEARS IN BALTIMORE 37 

severe agitations arose between capital and labor and 
strikes were common throughout the land. I preached 
a sermon dealing with this question, contending that 
both sides were wrong, both being selfish, arrogant 
and unbrotherly; consequently both had left out of 
their thought the one Arbiter of all difficulties, Jesus 
Christ, who taught, ''All tilings whatsoever ye would 
tJiat men sliould do unto you, even so do ye also unto 
them.'' Between the upper and nether millstones of 
capital and labor, manhood was being ground out of 
human life, manhood out of the capitalist and man- 
hood out of the workingman. The price of progress 
is dear, but a society so organized that the precepts 
of Jesus are counted impracticable in it cannot claim 
to be a Christian society. The sermon was copied from 
the Baltimore papers by several Western papers. I 
give here only an excerpt as follows : 

' ' There is no greater question today that is occupy- 
ing the attention of the economist than that of capital 
and labor. Certainly there can be no higher standard 
of appeal to which all of these difficult problems could 
be carried with more safety than to Jesus Christ. So 
long as the emploj^er cares nothing for his employee ex- 
cept for his labor and the employee cares nothing for 
his employer except for his money, the chasm between 
employer and employee will widen and the only bridge 
that can span it is the one upon every arch and pier 
and girder of which is written 'All things whatsoever 
ye would that men should do unto you, even so do ye 
also unto them.' 

' ' The workingman fills both an honorable and vital 
position in our national life. As a fellow- worker with 
him I am his friend and my respect for him often 
passes into admiration, for the drops of sweat upon 



38 WORKING WITH GOD 

his brow are the gems of coronation ; but I am not in 
sympathy with this worMngman's craze, upon which 
politicians are riding into office and by which or- 
ganizations are aspiring to preeminence. No sooner 
is a banner upon which is inscribed 'Labor' unfurled 
to the breeze than men in factory and mill and shop, 
without investigating into its character, wildly salute 
what they regard as a harbinger of better days, with- 
out considering its justice, which is as unwise as for 
me to follow some flag upon which is inscribed the 
word ' Church, ' without inquiring into the merits of its 
call. All this is an evidence of unrest and dissatisfac- 
tion, but with a population so heterogeneous as ours 
the American workingman should think well before he 
acts. Burning cars and intimidating men is not spite 
against the railroads, but rebellion against govern- 
ment and every time the strikers roughly handle a 
'scab' workingman or destroy property they justify 
whatever intolerance and selfish methods their em- 
ployers may have used against them. Rough treat- 
ment meeting rough treatment is not the way to 
permanent peace. Whatever amount of property is 
destroyed will have to be replaced through taxes wliich 
come ultimately from labor. All that is lost in the 
strike will have to be earned again in the sweat of the 
worMngman's brow. He accomplishes nothing by 
this method, but makes his own burden harder. Jesus 
Christ offers a new and better way for the settlement 
of difficulties. 

' ' After labor has crushed capital and destroyed the 
vested rights of corporations, who will furnish the 
capital and who will conduct our great enterprises 
that give employment to so many thousands now? 
This rash method of employees is thoroughly perme- 
ated with anarchy and should be spurned by them as 
they attempt to spurn the oppression of the capitalists. 
The rights of a workingman are as sacred as those of 
a Idng, and he has as much right to form unions as 



MY FIRST YEARS IN BALTIMORE 39 

capital has to combine, but be will never attain those 
inherent rights by transcending justice, violating law 
and declaring war upon his employer, any more than 
the capitalist will attain the position of wiser citizen- 
ship by scrimping the wages of his employees and op- 
pressing them by unreasonable hours of labor. The 
workingman has as much right to set his prices for 
his labor as the manufacturer has for his goods; he 
has the right to leave the shop when the prices fall but 
he has no right to interfere with the man who takes his 
place, any more than I have to interfere with a min- 
ister who succeeds me in this pulpit. If any good 
comes out of these strikes may it be to so arouse the 
American people that the necessity will be devolved 
upon Congress to appoint a permanent commission of 
arbitration, where both the oppressed and the oppres- 
sors may find justice and peace. Capital is narrowing 
down so rapidly into the hands of the few and the 
complaints and cries of the laborers are so blocking 
the gateway of the opening century that there seems 
never to have been such a time when the religion of 
Jesus Christ should stand out stripped of all formality 
and theories, so that the simple truths in practical 
life may shine out in that sweetening grace so as to 
bring order out of chaos and turn our humanity Grod- 
ward. ' ' 

Some expressed their approval of this position and 
others their disapproval. The Knights of Labor in 
Baltimore passed resolutions commiserating me while 
the Soldiers ' National Eeunion of the Grand Army of 
the Republic invited me to deliver a sermon at their 
annual encampment, which I accepted. This involved 
me in quite a humorous experience. On reaching the 
Western town where the encampment was to be held, 
no one appeared to be at the station to meet me. I ob- 
served a group of gentlemen meeting another group, 



40 WORKING WITH GOD 

who were getting off the train. Prince Albert coats 
and silk hats were in evidence. I had never been dis- 
tinguished for conspicuous dress and on this occasion 
I wore a sack coat and other things in keeping with it. 
Nobody appeared to so much as look at me, so I con- 
cluded with a degree of certainty that that was not 
the committee that was to meet me. After the sta- 
tion had been cleared, I went up to the ticket agent 
and asked where such a man lived, calling him by 
name. I was informed that he and a committee had 
just left the station, having come down to meet several 
gentlemen, who were on the programme of the en- 
campment. I walked up to his house, rang the bell 
and was ushered into the parlor. When I introduced 
myself, this distinguished gentleman could not con- 
ceal his disappointment, and perhaps suspicion. As 
far as courtesy would permit, he asked such questions 
regarding myself and my work as would establish mj^ 
identity ; evidently, however, my Southern accent and 
my youth were causing him painful embarrassment. 
Somehow it has been a common experience with me in 
meeting people who have heard of me but have never 
seen me that they imagine me to be about seventy 
years old, with white hair and long white beard. I 
have sometimes thought that they must have associated 
me with Peter Cooper, whose picture used to be fre- 
quently in the papers ; or maybe I was confused with 
my father or my grandfather, whose name I bore. 

However, through the afternoon several conferences 
were held by the committee and I could see clearly 
that I was the subject of discussion. Each of them 
called, talked with me a while and then left. In the 



MY FIRST YEARS IN BALTIMORE 41 

evening the whole committee called in a body, frankly 
acknowledging their embarrassment, the issue being, 
as I had suspected, especially my Southern birth and 
sympathies. I offered to relieve them by not keeping 
my engagement, returning East on the next train, but 
that would only have added to the awkwardness, so it 
was decided that I should speak at the time and place 
announced. That night a terrific storm arose, carry- 
ing in its path general destruction of property, wash- 
ing away railroad bridges and demolishing several 
buildings in the town, among them the encampment 
tabernacle. Sunday morning it was still raining. I de- 
livered my message in one of the smaller churches to 
as suspicious an audience as I ever stood before. My 
address was a common-sense appeal for confidence be- 
tween the North and the South. It was published in 
full in the town papers. I give here only a paragraph 
as follows : 

"Reflecting upon the sacred associations of this 
gathering, I involuntarily find myself standing by the 
furrow in which fell the soldiers of the blue and the 
soldiers of the grey. I would place upon their graves 
a common garland, for were they not all brave men? 
There I would drop a common tear, for were they not 
brothers of American blood ? I would not tear afresh 
the wounds of our honored dead, nor would I put a 
tear upon the cheek of the soldier's orphan nor draw 
a sigh from the lips of the soldier's widow, for, be 
they soldiers of the North or soldiers of the South, 
they were all honorable men. I come with no apology 
from my fair Southern land, whose escutcheon is still 
untarnished, and from her defeated battle fields arises 
a fragrance sweeter than the fragrance of a crushed 
flower. With uncovered head, and heart heaving with 
deep emotion I stand amid her graves, her marble 



42 WORKING WITH GOD 

shafts, her broken swords and her mildewed flags, and 
I believe that I am standing on sacred ground. Yet 
I lift up everlasting thanksgiving that God Almighty 
threw the dice of battle and lifted the nightmare of 
human slavery from the American Republic and pre- 
served our sisterhood of states into a compact union. 
In the words of the golden-hearted Grady, ' Now, what 
answer have the men of the North' to this question? 
Will you permit the prejudice of war to be kept alive 
in the hearts of the conquerors when it has died in 
the hearts of the conquered?' I would lift high the 
sword of U. S. Grant, that the children of the South 
and the children of the North may revere it, but by its 
side, and no whit lower, I would put the sword of 
Robert E. Lee. Then from the battle fields of Bull 
Run, Shiloh, Chancellorsville, Vicksburg, Cold Har- 
bor and Gettysburg I would gather the burst balls, 
the broken bayonets, rusty swords and old worn-out 
muskets, and I would pile them into a great heap, but 
above them all I would place the document of emanci- 
pation that broke the shackles of American slavery as 
far greater than all the battles in the war between the 
states, prophetic of the time when the arts and imple- 
ments of war shall be declared as remnants of a bar- 
barous age, and human mind and human heart, under 
the meridian splendor of Divine grace, shall solve all 
problems of human justice, untU humanity has grown 
into the likeness of its God." 

I would hardly deliver the same kind of address 
now, especially that referring to the glory of war. 
After the services, however, I discovered that the tide 
had turned in my favor. The committee called, in- 
sisting that I should deliver the same address that 
evening in the largest church in the town, but having 
complied with the committee's original request, I 
good-naturedly bade them good-bye, returning East 



MY FIRST YEARS IN BALTIMORE 43 

that evening. Later the Bar Association of the town 
invited me to return for a special lecture on a similar 
subject, but the episode, at first awkward, had become 
so pleasant that I decided to leave it there, although 
some rabid political papers tried to make capital out 
of a Southerner appearing on a programme of the 
Grand Army of the Republic. 

Occasional activities in channels other than the 
routine of the Third Church served the desired pur- 
pose with me. Out of these experiences I saw the ad- 
vantage of the foreign missionary's furlough. I was 
doing missionary work as difficult in many particu- 
lars as that in a foreign field. Always on my return 
to Baltimore I worked harder to bring the work of 
the church up to a higher standard of service, so that 
by the grace of God, in the first three years, the way 
was cleared for the foundation to be laid in the after 
years. 



Impressions on the Heart 



In the quaint little house where Shakespeare 
lived, at Stratford-on-Avon, for many years no 
register was kept, and visitors wrote their names 
upon the ceiling and walls until every bit of 
space had been occupied with some handwriting; 
and it must not be forgotten that fully forty 
thousand people visit there every year. Sir Wal- 
ter Scott had wiitten with his diamond riag his 
name upon the window-pane, and there were the 
names of Washington Irving, John Ruskin, and 
a host of distinguished and non-distinguished 
visitors. 

Standing there, I felt as though that little 
room was like the human heart, sensible to every 
influence, and inviting every comer to write his 
name upon its walls; for the heart is the most 
impressionable of all God's works. It gets a 
part of every passing thought, word, look, pic- 
ture, — everything; and here lies its salvation, if 
it catches the good; or its damnation if it holds 
the bad. Luther wisely said, '^I am more afraid 
of my own. heart than of the pope and all his 
cardinals." And hence that imperative demand, 
"Love the Lord with all thy heart." — In The 
Sundan/ School Times. 



44 



Ill 

The Formative Years 



There is a wide difference between the ideals that 
fill one 's dream of life and those ideals when put into 
practice, up against the hard knotty problems of the 
living world. I was thoroughly conscious that I was 
passing out of the former into the latter — "in some 
sense my mind was on a journey," as Newman ex- 
pressed it — ^but the difficulties far exceeded my ex- 
pectation, although at times their severity rather lent 
a fascination to the task, making me feel my kinship 
with the pioneers on the mission field, as well as with 
those early disciples in the first centuries of Chris- 
tianity. 

As grave as were the financial problems — and I al- 
ways felt I erred in not taking direct hold of this de- 
partment at that time — ^nevertheless the problem of 
the fidelity of the people to the work was graver. I 
did not mind doing all sorts of petty jobs around 
the church, if out of the multitudes that came I could 
find foundations upon which to build a permanent 
work. I never understood the parable of the sower 
until those years. When Jesus spoke of some seeds 
falling by the wayside, some on rocky places, some 
among thorns and some on good ground. He described 
the four classes that enter the Church, leaving one- 
fourth as the dependable membership, those of the 
good ground. George Miiller estimated the whole 

45 



46 WORKING WITH GOD 

Church on this basis and I am led to think that he was 
correct. My own observation has led me to conclude 
that religion in the lives of most people is very super- 
ficial. It was always a personal sorrow, however, hav- 
ing led one to Christ, then because of shallow soil, or 
rocky ground, or some kind of thorny growth, this one 
would become independable by irregular and uninter- 
ested attendance, leaving the fourth part that came 
into the Church the good ground upon which to build. 

So serious was the problem regarding the founda- 
tions for a permanent work that at one of the official 
board meetings, the question was raised whether the 
work was really worth the sacrifice, and the prevail- 
ing opinion appeared to be that it would be better 
perhaps to let the creditors take the property, have 
the members to go into the established churches where 
conditions were easier and for me to accept the next 
invitation I received to some good church, where I 
could live "without daily vexations and burdens. It 
sounded very reasonable and pleasant. I informed 
the board, however, that they could do as they desired, 
but I intended to stand by the work, however great 
and impossible the difficulties might be. Long ago I 
had decided to undertake a work in an American 
field that was as difficult as any in a foreign land 
and I felt that I had found it. I believed, however, 
that men were made for just such places, for in this 
way the Church grows. 

Nearly the entire membership of the Third Church 
had come directly from the world. Most of them had 
been christened Eoman Catholics, Methodists, Episco- 
palians, Presbyterians, Lutherans, or in their primary 



THE FORMATIVE YEARS 47 

years had been in a Baptist Sunday-school, or no Sun- 
day-school at all. They were in the main a part of 
that great host of Sunday-school scholars who drift 
into the world and whom the Church never hears of 
again, growing up with little or no knowledge of 
Church life. This was a needy and neglected field, 
and to this task the Third Church set itself earnestly. 
Persons who were members of other churches were not 
sought after, but the unaffiliated were brought to line 
up for Jesus Christ. My policy has always been to 
treat members of other churches just as I would like 
ministers of other churches to treat members of my 
church. 

I preached the Gospel as I understood it without 
being influenced by any human conditions whatsoever. 
I sought to make my message as catholic as my in- 
vitations, and at the close of every sermon an invita- 
tion something like this was given and is still given : 
''If there is any person here who desires to confess 
his faith in Jesus as the Christ or to renew his cove- 
nant, you are invited to come forward. You are not 
required to join this church. You may join the 
church of your choice. Or if there are any here who 
desire to take membership with this church, you are 
invited." Thousands have come to Christ upon this 
invitation. If the person, coming forward, had never 
been a Christian, he was asked publicly: ''Do you 
believe with all your heart that Jesus is the Christ 
the Son of the living God and your Lord and 
Saviour?" Or if he was a member of another com- 
munion and desired to be baptized by immersion, his 
confession would not be taken, he having already done 



48 WORKING \VITH GOD 

that in his previous Christian service, it simply being 
publicly stated that he had come forward for baptism, 
upon which he could remain in his church if he de- 
sired and frequently he did this. Or, if he had form- 
erly been a Christian and did not come to join my 
church, he was asked: "Do you hereby renew your 
covenant with God through Jesus Christ our Lord and 
reconsecrate your life to H^s service?" Or if he 
came to take membership, the whole membership of 
the church was asked to stand while a copy of the 
Scriptures was presented and the right hand of fel- 
lowship given, thereby making him a member of the 
local congregation. This last was always made the 
least in insistence. 

Sometimes in holding meetings in other local 
churches some have objected to the broadness of this 
invitation. Under such circumstances I have usually 
told them that I could close the meeting and go home 
without any cost to the church, but that I did not 
know how to give any other invitation any more than 
did the drummer boy in Napoleon's army know how 
to beat a retreat. The Gospel invitation is alwaj^s 
narrowed when it is made an invitation to join some 
local church or some particular communion. I have 
always felt that I am in a bigger business than merely 
building up a local church and this policy is in con- 
formity with the spirit of the Scriptures. 

It took some while to get a proper financial basis 
in the Third Church, but gradually it came. One 
important step was the abolition of all illicit methods 
of money raising. This might have been done earlier 
by a positive protest against it, but it was far better 



THE FORMATIVE YEARS 49 

to SO educate tlie people that they would demand it 
themselves. Two incidents prepared the way for this, 
along with the incoming of a young man who took as 
much interest in the church finances, and a perma- 
nent interest, as in his own financial affairs. The first 
incident referred to was a two weeks ' meeting, preach- 
ing every evening on some Scriptural instance or 
principle of giving. It was not a very popular meet- 
ing, but the emphasis alone called attention to a great 
principle in Christian living that helped greatly to a 
better understanding of giving. The other was in my 
being the president of a bazaar a year or so after. 
When the ladies came to hold their annual bazaar, 
lasting a full week, they found difficulty in getting a 
president and I offered to take the position, greatly 
to their astonishment. I worked at it faithfully both 
before and behind the scene, keeping an account of 
all the transactions. Shortly after it was over I 
announced the number of fusses and doctors' bills, 
making the amount of money raised for the church 
rather inconsequential, although as a financial asset 
it was up to the usual standard. But that was the 
end of fairs, oyster suppers, bazaars, musical and 
literary entertainments for raising money in the 
Third Church. 

A supper without financial profit and a musical 
and literary entertainment without charge are help- 
ful in the social life of the Church, but as a method 
of raising money for that Jesus who had His Calvary 
and Arimathsea for us, it is both disorderly and dis- 
honorable, when we have the money in our pockets, 
which we refuse to part with except we get fried oys- 



50 WORKING WITH GOD 

ters, hot coffee and biscuits or such, like in return! 
There is a meanness in the atmosphere of a church 
bazaar, whether Protestant or Roman Catholic, that 
clogs the channels of spirituality. The next year 
after the Third Church abandoned this worldly 
method of raising money, we almost doubled our 
receipts and continued on the up grade financially. 
Most Christians are ignorant of the blessing attend- 
ing the giving of their money for the Lord's work, 
sometimes due to their own willfulness and in other 
instances to the lack of proper instruction from the 
pulpit. People who have tried gi^^ng rarely aban- 
don it. 

The policy of the Third Church was self-govern- 
ment in things pertaining to expediency. In matters 
of faith and conduct the teachings of Jesus and His 
apostles, as recorded in the New Testament, were con- 
stantly emphasized as the supreme authority, for we 
had pledged our loyalty to Him as Lord and Saviour. 
Persons elected to positions were given freedom to 
develop their work on their own lines, so that fre- 
quently I purposely stayed away from the meetings 
of the various organizations, giving large opportunity 
to their ability of initiative, unless the development 
precipitated friction, when they were immediately 
advised with, one organization not being allowed to 
trespass upon another in matters of service. The of- 
ficers of the church were selected by the minister in 
association with a committee and approved by the of- 
ficial board, one dissenting vote usually preventing a 
name's going to the congregation for their approval, 
one-third of the ofiicers coming up for election every 



THE FORMATIVE YEARS 51 

year. The names were presented to the church to be 
voted on three or four weeks from the date of pres- 
entation. If there were any objections to a name, the 
objection would be referred to the official board. If 
the objection were reasonable, the name would be 
withdrawn ; if unreasonable, it would be presented on 
the day named, along with the others, for the vote of 
the congregation, every effort being made to avoid 
cliques and friction, and the plan has worked well. 
/ An officer who had been unfaithful in his Chris- 
tian conduct or negligent in his public duties, or care- 
less in his weekly contributions, or irregular in his 
attendance on the board meetings without a good ex- 
cuse, was regarded as ineligible for reelection at the 
end of his term of three years. It is needless to say 
that the church was constantly changing the member- 
ship of the board in an effort to find men who had 
the sense of fidelity to the sacred trust of an officer 
in the Church of Christ — the greatness, dignity, privi- 
lege and blessing of which few men realize. In some 
instances men who were diligent in secular affairs and 
appeared interested in spiritual affairs, on being 
elected to office in the church were exceedingly sloth- 
ful in their spiritual duties, getting some kind of a 
notion that their office gave them the privilege of ab- 
sence more than otherwise and without explaining 
their irregularity either to the church or to the official 
board — a thing that no business man would think of 
doing in his business, indicating not intentional dis- 
courtesy or any ugliness, but simply a lack of under- 
standing of God and the Church, which so pained me 
in the instance of every irregularity that I could but 



52 WORKING WITH GOD 

recall from time to time one of the sayings of 
Napoleon, whose table talks I was fond of reading as 
a boy. In 1789 he said, ''Good God! how rare men 
are. There are eighteen millions in Italy and I have 
with difficulty found two, Dandolo and Melzi." I 
could usually find one here and there, but in time 
the official board came to be made up of men whose 
fidelity gave worth to their counsels. 

One of the relief of these years, and all years for 
that matter, has been the friendship of children. 
There was rarely a public service of any kind that 
children were not in attendance. It was a common 
thing to preach on Sunday evenings with children sit- 
ting around at the base of the pulpit platform. One 
sleepy or gaping grown person will disturb me far 
more than the disorder of half a dozen children, whose 
right to restlessness I have never failed to recognize. 
God used the ministry of children to help me over 
many a hard place in those formative years. In call- 
ing, to be told that only the children are in never 
caused me to turn away from a door. It was such an 
instance in my first calling in the city, that a group of 
little girls of the neighborhood were keeping house 
with another little girl, when I called. Most of them 
were at church for the first time the following Sun- 
day. Later one of them became the organist in the 
Sunday-school when her feet barely reached the 
pedals and some years after she became the church 
organist. 

One day, sitting in a group of children, this time 
in one of the rooms of the church, telling them stories, 
a little girl stopped me to recite a verse she had re- 



THE FORMATIVE YEARS 53 

cently got to memory. It was ''My God shall siip- 
ply every need of yours according to His riches in 
glory in Christ Jesus.'' Her persistency to recite this 
brought a roar of laughter from the other children as 
they crowded around my chair, but the quotation had 
gone to my heart. It was at a time when I was 
greatly perplexed about certain conditions in my 
work and for my answer this little girl had called me 
to God, who did supply my need of both wisdom and 
patience. Somehow I had never seen this verse be- 
fore. Had it come directly from the sky on this oc- 
casion I could not have been more sure that Jesus was 
speaking to me. It was so personal that ever after 
in presenting a copy of the New Testament to persons 
taking membership with the church I usually wrote 
this verse on the fly leaf.* 

Evangelistic meetings with the minister doing the 
preaching became the established custom in the Third 
Church and it had many advantages, both for the 
preacher and the church, making the minister both the 
sower and the reaper, which every minister ought to 
be. At the same time it strengthens the tie between 
the minister and his flock, making it easier to deal with 
tliose who have been brought to Christ through his 
ministry. Every second or third year another preacher 
would be secured for these meetings and many 



*A copy of the New Testament with the Psalms is always given 
to every person at the time he is received into the church. If he 
has recently made his decision for Christ and been baptized, beneath 
his name is written, Confessed Christ (Matt. 10:32, 33) or (Rom. 
10:9, 10) or both passages are cited; following this is written. Bap- 
tized into Christ (Gal. 3:27), followed by the date when he became 
a member of the local church. Then Phil. 4:19 is written out in full. 
If he bears a letter or renews his covenant, it is simply stated that 
he became a member of the local church on such a day, followed by 
writing out in full Phil. 4:19. 



54 WORKING WITH GOD 

precious memories cluster around those fellowships. 
For several summers street preaching was conducted, 
having services at two or three places on Sunday eve- 
nings before the eight o'clock service at the church. 
While I spoke in all these services, competent laymen 
accompanied me, reading the Scriptures, leading in 
prayer and frequently preaching, besides a group of 
singers, who always accompanied us. At another 
time in the summer we would go by a small boat to 
the front of the river resorts and there sing the old 
familiar hjTnns amid the dissipation of the multitudes. 
On one occasion, one of the members moved to 
Howard County, perhaps twenty miles from the city, 
and invited me to visit there in the summer. I ac- 
cepted the invitation, provided that a tent would be 
erected, so I could preach every evening. This was 
done and a meeting started on Sunday evening. No 
one was in the tent with me but the singers, who 
came with me from Baltimore, and the family I was 
visiting, while on the outside were dozens of carriages 
and buggies filled with the neighbors, who had come 
through curiosity and who were somewhat suspicious, 
as we were all strangers there. The onlj^ churches in 
that community were Eoman Catholic and Methodist. 
After preaching for a while, I stopped, called for a 
hymn and announced that I would take up the second 
division of my sermon at the conclusion of the sing- 
ing, and that during the singing I would visit the 
people in the carriages and buggies to ascertain if 
they agreed with me on the first division of the ser- 
mon I had preached, and I did it. Before taking up 
the second division of my sermon the tent was full. 



THE FORMATRTE YEARS 55 

The hospitality of the people was very cordial, many 
of them sending their bnggies to haA^e me dine with 
them, so that nearly every day I was in some new 
home, reasoning out of the Scriptures and having 
prayers. 

The meeting closed with sixteen persons having 
confessed Christ. A very striking scene came at the 
close. One of the leading citizens of the community 
arose near the end of the service on the last night, 
made a brief speech regarding the meeting, and then 
asked if I would baptize him before returning to the 
city. We went the next morning for the ordinance to 
a dirty little pond in a plowed field. As he came up 
from the water, his wife, handsomely gowned in a 
black silk, got out of the carriage and asked if I 
would baptize her. As she came up from the water, 
the daughter-in-law, equally as handsomely gowned, 
asked if I would baptize her. It was somewhat like 
the baptizing of the household of the Philippian jailor 
— ^^the same hour/^ Others followed in being bap- 
tized. This incident made a profound impression. 
Some asked to organize a church there, but the com- 
munity could barely support the churches that were 
already there. Several came to the city, taking mem- 
bership with the Third Church, and others took mem- 
bership with the Methodist Church. 

The Third Church stood for evangelism, working 
in season and out of season for the salvation of a lost 
world. The inactivity of a church in the work of at- 
tempting to save men and women is an indication that 
it has lost its commission for service. The same prin- 
ciple applies to an individual. If a Christian has no 



56 WORKING WITH GOD 

interest in the salvation of others, it indicates a de- 
caying faith — an unholy condition of heart and life. 
Much time was spent in visiting persons not iden- 
tified with the church, but who attended there from 
time to time. No condition was a barrier to this work. 
One evening I made a call from the pulpit for some 
charitable work and, as I was standing at the door, a 
man passed out, putting in my hand two dollars for 
the cause I had named. Being a stranger I asked his 
name, but he pushed by me and was gone. Next Sun- 
day he was there and I recognized him. Again I 
asked his name and he again declined my request. 
The Sunday following he was there again. This time 
I asked several persons near him, pointing him out, 
when one man said, ''That's Berger, who runs that 
big saloon on Baltimore Street," naming the comer 
where it was located. Monday morning, right after 
breakfast, I went to the saloon, going in the front door. 
As I entered he arose to wait on me. When he dis- 
covered who his early caller was, he ran from behind 
the bar and taking hold of me said, "Mr. Ainslie, I 
can't let you stay in this place," to which I replied, 
''If you can stay here six days in the week, I certainly 
can stay here a few minutes this morning. ' ' We had 
a friendly tussle, when I yielded to his pleading and 
strength, going back into the dining room. We had a 
long talk over the saloon business, when he insisted 
that I would not come to see him there again, and if 
I did, to come in the side door. I told him I would 
be back to see him, coming in at the front door, in 
thirty days from that day, and the only way he could 
stop my visits was to change his business. Then he 



THE FORMATIVE YEARS 57 

said, ' ' I will sell out before thirty days are up, ' ' and 
he did, going on a farm to live. Later he returned to 
the city and opened a produce store near one of the 
markets, becoming an attendant at another church. 

On another occasion, I was out visiting the sick, 
where I met a man, who never went to church. We 
had not been talking very long, before I discovered 
that he was quite hostile to the Church, especially 
criticizing the Church for not doing more for the 
poor. I thought he was very nearly right. He had 
read his Bible and he reminded me of the practices 
of the Church in the New Testament times. I made 
no defense, but acknowledged that the Church had 
forgotten in many instances her duty to the poor. He 
told of a special case of an afflicted man in his neigh- 
borhood in great need, but that no church had given 
any assistance, most of the help coming from those 
outside of the church. They had raised ten dollars, 
but they needed ten more. I said, ' ' You come to my 
prayer-meeting to-morrow evening and the church 
will give you ten dollars. ' ' Although he had not been 
in a church for a long time, he was there. When the 
ten dollars was given him for his neighbor friend, he 
said, " I am coming to service next Sunday. ' ' A few 
months after he came in the church and later was 
made a deacon. 

One Sunday a group of boys was entered in the 
primary department of the Sunday-school. I called 
at their home and learned that none of the family were 
identified with the church. I made several attempts 
to see the father, but failed. Then I wrote him a let- 
ter, reminding him of the necessity of making his 



58 WORKIXG \NaTH GOD 

decision for Christ and urging that it be done at once. 
The following Sunday evening about six o'clock a 
fearful storm broke over the city, snow, hail and sleet. 
I was living about ten squares from the church and 
the street car line was not convenient. For the first 
time in my ministry I hesitated whether I would go 
to church that Sunday evening on account of the 
weather. But I had written this letter, asking this 
man to meet me there at eight o'clock and it had to 
do with his salvation. I went through the storm, find- 
ing only about a dozen persons there. I recognized 
all those but one. I had never seen the man to whom 
I had written, so I thought perhaps the stranger was 
he. I went down the aisle shaking hands with all. 
Coming to this man I asked if it were he and if he had 
gotten my letter. He replied, ''Yes sir, I received 
your letter and I have come to-night to answer it." 
He came in the church and later served as superin- 
tendent of the Sunday-school for a time and as deacon 
of the church. 

But all cases did not work like this. One night 
about ten o'clock, I was making my way home, going 
up Hollins Street near the church. It was intensely 
cold; the snow was nearly a foot deep and was still 
falling. The streets were deserted. I saw a man reel- 
ing in his attempt to make his way through the snow. 
I went over to him and discovered that he was drunk. 
1 asked him where he lived and after much difficulty 
he told me, being about ten squares out. I knew he 
could never get home in the storm, so I offered to take 
him. Arm in arm we tramped away. I saw several 
policemen, standing on their lonely beats, but no one 



THE FORMATIVE YEARS 59 

else appeared on the streets. When we reached the 
street that he told me he lived on, I was unable to 
locate his home. The man was dazed and could hardly 
speak at all, but by much effort, I learned that he 
lived in Sextonville, which was more than a mile 
further. I had never been to that little settlement 
and did not know how to reach there, but I could not 
leave. him lest he would fall and soon be covered in 
the snow. 

We started for Sextonville under his sign lan- 
guage, for by this time I could not understand much 
that he said. He insisted that we should go across a 
dark, vacant lot, which was irregular, with a big hill 
on the further side, as I afterwards discovered. We 
had not gotten very far when down we both went. 
It was up and down many times until we got to the 
brink of the hill, when I wanted to take him back, 
going around the hill. He insisted on going down 
and the next thing I knew, after rolling over each 
other many times, we both were lying covered with 
snow at the bottom of the big hill, facing the Union 
Stock Yards. After pulling vigorously at him, I got 
him up and we started again. I have never known 
whether I was on the right or wrong road to Sexton- 
ville ; but, when we got back of the Stock Yards, I was 
lost and I dared not go any further, besides, my man 
had fallen in the snow so frequently, and was so hard 
to get up each time that I decided to retrace my steps 
and make for a light that I had seen half an hour be- 
fore from the window of a saloon. 

Before starting back, I let the man lie in the snow 
for a while and I sat by him on a broken freight car 



60 WORKING WITH GOD 

SO that I miglit rest a little. There was not a sound out 
there in the darkness except the grunting of the pigs 
in the Stock Yards ; not a light except several street 
lamps in the distance on the suburbs of the city. A 
more weird scene I could not imagine. Had the man 
been large I could never have held out, but he was 
under my size. Making our way back, perhaps a 
quarter of a mile, falling many times, we came up to 
the saloon. I pushed open the door and my man fell 
full length on the floor, where he lay for a time as 
though he were dead. I said to the bar keeper: 
"Here's one of your products." With some pro- 
fane language he ordered me to take him out. We 
quarreled for a little while and I asked for a phone, 
calling up the Southwestern Police Station. When 
the operator learned that I was at Hudson's saloon 
with a drunken man at one o 'clock in the morning, he 
was not slow to inform me that I was in one of the 
most notoriously wicked dives in the city, and it 
looked so. A mixture of white and colored musicians 
— men and women — were playing on several instru- 
ments in a dimly lighted room, while others were 
drinking at the bar. Soon the patrol was there, tak- 
ing the man to the police station, and I went home. 

Next morning I hurried to the station before the 
trial to get a daylight glimpse of my man, but when 
I got there his trial was over and he had been dis- 
missed, this having been his first offense. I was in- 
formed that when he came to himself the next morn- 
ing and was told how he got there, he said to the 
police magistrate, ''Your honor, charge me anything 
you please, just so I can get away from here before 



THE FORMATIVE YEARS 61 

that preacher gets here, 'cause I certainly will be 
ashamed to see him after all that trouble he had with 
me. 1 11 swear before all the saints that I '11 leave the 
city before I ever get on another drunk again. ' ' And 
he departed by one of the back streets lest he meet me 
on the main street leading to the station house. These 
experiences, and others like them, lent a relaxation 
to my ministry at the Third Church that helped me 
to forget the harder problems which were daily meet- 
ing their solution, and a faithful membership was 
gradually coming into evidence in many ways, for 
the increase was of the Lord. ''Neither is lie that 
planteth anything, neither he that watereth; hut God 
that giveth the increase." I was coming to know that 
while on one side I was dealing with people, on the 
other side I was dealing with God, and the results 
were with Him, so I had to be patient, working dili- 
gently with the people and waiting reverently upon 
God. "For we are God's fellow-workers; ye are 
God's husbandry, God's building. " 

I was going constantly — too constantly, for I was 
unconsciously going beyond my strength, holding two, 
sometimes three, meetings a year, editing The Chris- 
tian Tribune and looking after the affairs of the Third 
Church, but I was very happy in being able to do 
what I could. At that period a leading physician and 
surgeon of the city — a Presbyterian — sent a message 
through my sister for me to come to his office next 
day at a stated hour. I had never met him and I did 
not know the purpose of his request, but at the hour 
named I called, finding a room full of waiting pa- 
tients. Instead of taking me into his office, he took 



62 WORKING WITH GOD 

me into Ms parlor and closed the door. I facetiously 
asked, ^'Doctor, what are you going to do to me?" 
He replied, ''I am going to be your friend." After 
examining me thoroughly, he told me that if I kept on 
going as I was at that time, I might live six months 
longer, but hardly beyond that. He gave me no pre- 
scription, but advised that I retire every night at ten 

'clock, certainly by half after ten, and remain in bed 
in the morning until I awoke naturally. At that time 

1 was in bed about six hours. Eegarding my food, he 
advised that I stop eating acids and sweets, especially 
pastries, stop drinking coffee and tea, but between 
meals to drink a quart or more of water every day and 
very little water at meals; at night let my last 
thought be of Grod and likewise my first thought in the 
morning. It was a great moment with me. I obeyed 
his orders for the next two years to the letter. In less 
than a year I had increased in weight from one hun- 
dred and eighteen pounds to one hundred and sixty, 
my health being better than it had ever been, and 
since then I have known little limit to my endurance. 
Later I went back occasionally to the mid-night hours 
for my study period. I always felt, however, that God 
was in the call of this physician, preparing me for 
greater responsibilities. 

Through my sister, out of whose semi-invalid life 
I had learned many valuable lessons, I became inter- 
ested in the working girl problem and we often dis- 
cussed it together. In those formative years, the 
Girls' Club of Seminar>^ House and Seminary House 
were established, but I will speak of these in another 
chapter; also in those years, two of our branch 



THE FORMATIVE YEARS 63 

cliurches were started, but I will speak of these in a 
chapter devoted to that interest. It is sufficient here 
to mention the rise of these movements that later be- 
came permanent parts in our programme. Those years 
were crowded with many problems, besides those of 
my own thinking, but God's teachings, training and 
discipline of me had helped me to be a better min- 
ister of my flock, and I came to have a clearer under- 
standing of the terms of living faith. 



A Prayer 



O Lord, Thou Whose eyes seest everything, 
even into the secrets of my heart, and with 
"Whom is all wisdom and power, be not silent to 
my petition. In my suffering, let me observe 
Thy presence and, out of pain, teach me sub- 
mission. I cannot always understand what Thou 
art doing with me, but O Thou Watcher of men, 
make my soul to know that Thou art always just 
and good, ever longsuffering in Thy mercy. Give 
me Thy strength to bear the burden. Teach me 
that if I would be most serviceable to Thee, I 
must be marred and hurt and made to bleed. 
Then I shall come forth as gold tried in the fur- 
nace, and Thy righteousness shall be my robe 
and Thy glory my diadem. Amen. 

— From Studies in the Old Testament. 



64 



IV 

The Formative YearS 

(Continued) 



My early life liad been rather easy, due to broken 
health, against which I frequently chafed. I was a 
strong boy up to twelve years of age, when I was laid 
very low with a severe case of typhoid fever, from 
which I did not fully recover for a score of years, 
sometimes the slightest physical exertion incapacitat- 
ing me for weeks. Some summer mornings I would 
go out in the field to plow. Seeing the doctor coming 
up the road I would hide in the bushes until he had 
passed, lest he call me to the fence, feel my pulse and 
look at my tongue, as the country doctor did in those 
days, when I would always be sent to the house to go 
to bed. Every doctor in my father's acquaintance 
was consulted and so many kinds of patent medicines 
were tried on me that a table two and a half feet 
square in the hall had nearly as many bottles on it as 
were in the village drug store. Hunting, fishing, 
swimming and all those sports so common to a country 
boy were largely cut out of my life. I was taken out 
of school and sent South for a year with my brother 
and cousin who were doing business in New Orleans 
and Atlanta, thinking the change might help me. My 
father's constant fear was that I would never reach 
manhood, but in after years I saw that all this prison 

65 



66 WORKING WITH GOD 

life of broken health gave me an education that I 
never could have gotten without it. 

My home was a school in itself, with rare advan- 
tages that have left their enrichment in all that I have 
attempted to be and do. It was an humble cottage 
on a two acre lawn crowded with large trees, some 
close to a hundred years old, on the outskirts of the 
village of Dunnsville, Essex County, which in those 
days was one of the most cultured rural centers in 
Virginia. My father was a minister, as was his father, 
who came from Edinburgh, Scotland, settling first in 
Baltimore and later in Richmond, where my father 
was born. My mother's family came from England 
to Virginia three generations back — Sizer and Turn- 
er — and their value of education was expressed when 
my mother 's two brothers graduated from the Univer- 
sity of Virginia, one becoming a minister and the 
other a physician, who also held a diploma from Jef- 
ferson College, Philadelphia. My father had attended 
Bethany College and my mother the Young Ladies' 
Seminary at White Chimneys, in Caroline County. 
My father's library was not large — probably five hun- 
dred volumes in all — ^but they were books of worth in 
that day, being largely historical, theological and 
poetical, with a few volumes in science, philosophy 
and fiction; along with these, a well-to-do relative, 
living in the neighborhood, subscribed to several il- 
lustrated weeklies and the leading monthly magazines, 
which were always shared with us. 

Being about the house a great deal I came to 
know every book in the library. My boast was that 
I could locate in the dark any book my father or 





PETER AINSLIE REBECCA E. AINSLIE 

Born December 25, 1816. Born November 13, 1826. 

Died March 22, 1887. Died August 4, 1904. 

MY FATHER AND MOTHER AT SEVENTY YEARS OF AGE 




COTTAGE HILL, NEAR DUNNSVILLE, VA. 

My I'irthplace and the Home of My Boyhood Days. 



THE FORMATIVE YEARS 67 

mother might wish. No day was ever allowed to pass 
that I was not made to read, whether I w^anted to or 
not. If I were too ill to be out under the trees read- 
ing my mother would sit by my bedside and read 
aloud. So that the great names in literature, theology 
and history were as familiar in my home as the names 
of the neighbors and were far more frequently dis- 
cussed than the affairs of the neighborhood. I came 
so to like the fellowship of these great souls that once 
while waiting for my corn to be ground at Phillips' 
mill, I secluded myself in a quiet place on the mill 
dam and got to memory Gray's Elegy. When a noted 
lecturer came to the village on one occasion — preach- 
ing and lecturing, with dinner on the grounds — ^which 
was a great event, I had become so interested in Ham- 
let before the time to start to the village that I begged 
off, staying at home all day alone, revelling in mem- 
orizing many of the great passages in that drama. 
Literature and history became daily studies under my 
mother's direction. The poets became as real to me 
as my kin, so that when I visited Poets' Corner in 
Westminster Abbey for the first time, when I was 
studying in Europe, I felt the tears in mj eyes as I 
stood by their tombs, especially that of Tennyson, as 
often before when a boy I would go in the Belle View 
graveyard, on my way from the river back home, and 
kneel in the bushes beside the graves of my little 
brothers and little sister to pray. 

My home was a house of prayer. Family worship 
was held night and morning. As a boy I used to think 
my father read very long chapters and prayed very 
long prayers, but I dared not hint this lest it become 



68 WORKING WITH GOD 

as sacrilegious as iiiisbeliavior in church.. There were 
three bells in the morning — one for rising, one for 
worship and another for breakfast, each bell being 
different, so the rings could be easily distinguished. 
My father's principles of discipline required all the 
family to be present both morning and evening at 
worship. On the opening of school in the fall, when 
1 was all ready on the first day with my books and 
lunch, my mother would always take me upstairs, close 
the door and in a wonderfully sweet prayer, commit 
me for that session to the keeping of the heavenly 
Father. When my brother was about to leave for the 
South after a short visit home, while the buggy was 
standing at the gate to take him to the wharf, my 
father would gather all the family in the parlor for 
prayer. God became very personal to me and seemed 
very near. 

It was perfectly natural from my earliest recollec- 
tion to hear my father and mother say, ''This boy 
is going to be a preacher." My earliest conception 
was calling all creation to God. When a very little 
boy I was caught several times preaching to the pigs 
and the chickens and later to the trees in the woods 
back of my home, whose moving boughs I took as nod- 
ding in ascent to my messages, which pleased me very 
much better than the grunting of the pigs and the 
cackling of the hens. As I was growing up I recall 
how often I wished that I could do something for 
God. I was fond of flowers, having a flower garden of 
my own, from whose paths I watched for new blossoms, 
which I used to take as God's greetings to me and 
would say to myself, I wonder if I shall ever have a 



THE FORMATIVE YEARS 69 

garden of people to whom I shall minister and whose 
lives under my cultivation shall bloom like my flowers. 
I became a Christian at ten years of age and I must 
have been about sixteen when I made my first speech 
in the church, which I carefully prepared and deliv- 
ered before the whole congregation. I wrote my first 
article for the press at that age. I continued to give 
my testimony until at nineteen I preached my first 
sermon, May 1, 1887, taking as my text, ''And I, if I 
he lifted up from the eartJi, will draw all men unto 
me." 

I never heard in my home the valuation of men 
expressed in money, as " A $600 preacher, " " An $800 
preacher," "$2,000," ''$5,000," etc. I only knew 
the valuation of men by what they appeared to be. 
When, however, I came to learn of this common valua- 
tion I knew of no stronger protest I could make 
against it than identifying myself with those min- 
isters who received the least for their services. So I 
sought to accommodate myself to the receiving of a 
small salary, thereby having fellowship with that host 
of ministers in all communions whose salaries are 
small and whose problems are most difficult and among 
whom are some of the noblest of the Lord's saints. 
Sometimes when invited to some large, wealthy 
church, I would find myself inquiring in my own 
heart whether this attempt to remove me and with it 
the abolition of my ideals was from the Lord or from 
Satan. On one occasion, when Paul was prevented 
from visiting the church at Thessalonica, he wrote, 
''Satan hindered us," and on another occasion when 
he was prevented from visiting the province of Asia 



70 WORKING ^VITH GOD 

it was said: ''Having been forbidden of the Holy 
Spirit to speak the word in Asia.'^ It is sometimes 
very difficult to know whose leadership we are follow- 
ing in questions of this character or whose influence 
hinders. Usually when the finances of the Third 
Church were very low I would get an invitation to 
some church. It got to be so frequent that I began 
to look for it with more certainty than the back pay- 
ments on my salary. 

I recall on one occasion — and this is not alone — 
that when the finances of the church were so low that 
I received only ten dollars a week for four weeks, with 
many bills pressing me, I was invited to a wealthy 
church, offering me three times the salary that the 
Third Church had promised me, with the understand- 
ing that if those figures were not satisfactory I could 
name my own salary. On another occasion a commit- 
tee from a strong church visited me, emphasizing pre- 
eminently their wealth and large salary. Like the 
other, it was a very desirable field, but I could not re- 
sist saying to the committee, ''The power of your 
church seems to be in money rather than the Holy 
Spirit and I am afraid for my soul that if I dwelt 
among you I would be as poor as you are." In say- 
ing all this I am not depreciating wealthy people and 
their money, for scores of wealthy people are the 
Lord's friends and money has a very important place 
in the Church, but the place is secondary. ''Not by 
might nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the 
Lord/' is the way of advance and I did not consider 
turning away from my task while the Lord was test- 
ing the sincerity of my service, for my ownership was 



THE FORMATIVE YEARS 71 

in Christ. If He saw fit to so lead me, whether the 
pathway was difficult or easy, I must practice the 
principles of contentment, not pleasing myself, for 
^'Christ pleased not Himself/' 

But before leaving the thoughts of my Virginia 
home, I must speak of the outlook from my home on 
the Christian world. Presbyterian ancestry on one 
side and Episcopalian on the other, coming through 
the Baptists, had left some traces in my father and 
mother. Both, however, had been reared under the 
influence of the Disciples of Christ and both had deep 
convictions. Both read widely and for a number of 
years my father was one of the editors of a weekly 
paper published in Richmond, Virginia — TJie CJiris- 
tiun Examiner. He was uncompromising in his ad- 
vocacy for the union of the Church by a return to 
the beliefs and practices of the Church of Christ as it 
was in the New Testament times, and sometimes blunt- 
I5'' so, but he never failed to recognize that a divided 
Church meant Christians in all divisions. In his 
library were books by Presbyterians, Episcopalians, 
Methodists, Baptists, Congregationalists, Eoman Cath- 
olics, Disciples and others. I breathed the atmosphere 
of catholicity and often listened to my father and 
his guests talking about the sins of division and the 
necessity of a united Church. It profoundly im- 
pressed me. Before I went to college I had a de- 
lightful fellowship with the communions of my com- 
munity and was as free in their meetings as in those 
of my own communion, receiving frequent courtesies 
at their hands that I can never forget. When I went 
to college, I bore letters of introduction to other min- 



72 WORKING WITH GOD 

isters in Lexington, Ky., as well as to those of the Dis- 
ciples, and frequently attended their services. 

My early ministry in Baltimore, however, was 
characterized at times by what would be commonly 
called strongly denominational preaching, being some- 
times marked by caustic criticisms of which I am now 
ashamed. When I discovered where I was and what 
I was doing, largely through the criticisms of my con- 
gregation, I shifted my position back to my early con- 
ception of Christianity and its manifestations, where 
I have held it ever since, for my old Virginia home, 
vdth its high ideals and its fellowship with all minds 
that thought along the paths of God, was a university 
in itself. But it became an interesting study to me 
as to the causes that entered into my unconscious 
shifting to a position that was so opposed to my spirit 
and my early training and I do not think I am over 
critical when I say that it appeared to me that the 
causes were: 

First, my college training. By that I do not mean 
to reflect upon my teachers. They were all men of 
fine character, preeminent in scholarship and piety, 
whose memories I revere. If I had to go to a school 
commonly classed as denominational, I would rather 
have sat at the feet of the professors in that period 
than any others. But a school where all the teachers 
are of one communion is an unfair training to a young 
man preparing to be a minister of Jesus Christ to the 
whole church. It is a narrow and sectarian method 
of education that is less suited to the ministry than 
any other training, for the union of the Church is the 
greatest issue in Christendom and union can never 



THE FORMATIVE YEARS 73 

come by training in isolation, for such training leads 
inevitably to a one-sided apprehension of the truth. 

Second, my editorship of a weekly so-called denom- 
inational paper — TJie Christian Tribune — ^which I 
started near the beginning of my ministry in Balti- 
more and continued for six years, consolidating it at 
the end of that time with The Christian Century of 
Chicago. It arose to no mean influence. But the serv- 
ice of a denominational paper is largely to keep up 
the denominational fences, looking out for the denom- 
inational traditions and resenting attacks from dis- 
senting denominations. The editor's watchfulness in 
these matters assures him of a certain kind of dis- 
tinction. Consequently the average denominational 
paper is one of the greatest hindrances to the larger 
Christian fellowship, just as the man who reads only 
the paper of his own communion has a broken and an 
imperfect outlook upon the world, for he sees only the 
results of a particular phase of Christianity. I like to 
fight sin and I am at it constantly, but I have little 
interest in the petty theological quarrels between the 
communions, whether one of the parties to the quar- 
rel be mine or some other communion. 

Third, my restricted fellowship, which while it was 
very pleasant and helpful, was confined to my own 
communion. A large city frequently forces this upon 
a minister, especially if his work is small and his com- 
munion not well known in the city, so that he finds 
himself almost exclusively in his own local church, his 
own ministerial circle, and his own church conven- 
tions, making the whole condition to smack of a party, 
which is not helpful to any preacher and especially to 



74 WORKING WITH GOD 

a Disciple, whose ministry for the union of the Church 
must carry him into all circles. In politics I had be- 
come an independent and my heart refused to be re- 
stricted to any party in Christendom. I loved the 
whole Church and I desired most of all to be simply a 
Christian, not in distinction from others, but as an 
indication of fellowship with all. 

I love people for what they are, not for their 
theology. I always loved Francis of Assisi and after 
hearing in my first years in Baltimore a series of 
lectures by Richard R. Storrs at Johns Hopkins Uni- 
versity on Bernard of Clairvaux, he likewise took a 
very definite place in my affections. But the theologi- 
cal opinions of Francis and Bernard were of such a 
secondary consequence with me that I quite forgot 
that they believed in transubstantiation and such like 
doctrines. The charm of their lives was the high 
standard of living they set up. John Wesley saw it 
aright when he said, "I am sick of opinions. I am 
weary to bear them ; my soul loathes the frothy food. 
Give me solid substantial religion; give me a humble, 
gentle lover of God and man, a man full of mercy 
and good fruits, a man laying himself out in the work 
of faith, the patience of hope, the labor of love. Let 
my soul be with those Christians wheresoever they be 
and whatsoever opinions they are of. ' ' When he was 
taken to task by some of his Methodist brethren for 
writing the life of a Unitarian minister he replied, * ' I 
have nothing to do with this man's opinions, but I 
dare not say he is not a Christian," reminding me of 
some criticisms that came to me because of my fond- 
ness for Emerson. I used to take his essays with me 



THE FORMATIVE YEARS 75 

on my trips over the country, reading them again and 
again with great profit and recalling the story of 
Father Taylor, a Methodist pioneer in New England 
and friend of Emerson, who, on being asked if he 
thought the Concord philosopher was saved, replied 
in his characteristic fashion, ' ' All I know is that if he 
has gone to hell, he'll change the climate." 

Two definite experiences came into my life in those 
formative years which gave me great blessing. The 
first had to do with tithing. After paying taxes for 
several years I began asking, What about Good's 
taxes ? We know when we have discharged our finan- 
cial obligations to the State by the payment of a defi- 
nite sum. Is there no way of knowing when we have 
discharged our financial obligations to God by the pay- 
ment of a like definite sum? The State names the 
amount. Does God give no standard by which we 
can know whether we have discharged our financial 
obligations to Him? I felt there must be an answer 
to this question as a necessary part of that ''peace of 
God wJiicTi passetJi all understanding.' ' Of course I 
knew about the Old Testament law of tithes, but I had 
gotten the impression that it belonged to the Mosaic 
dispensation and that under Christ we were to give 
as the Lord had prospered us — a very satisfactory 
programme for this covetous age, and so indefinite 
that very few Christians give in proportion to their 
prosperity, while most Christians give little or noth- 
ing — Christ having to take the most meager leavings. 

When I searched the Scriptures I found that tith- 
ing has as fundamental a place in religion as has one 
day in seven for rest and worship. In tithing even the 



76 WORKING WITH GOD 

little things, Jesus said, "TJiese ye ought to Jiave 
done/' putting His sanction upon this great principle. 
Tithing antedated the Mosaic period ; in that period 
it was emphasized and explained. It was no part of 
that law that was nailed to the Cross. Great moral 
considerations underlie the principle of tithing. I 
found that a tenth of my income belonged to G-od and 
to withhold it would be the same kind of deception as 
to make a false entry of property, thereby dodging 
the required taxes of the State. Were I to do this re- 
garding the State, I would feel in my heart that I was 
a thief and people would have no respect for me. 
Should I be less honest with God than with the State ? 
Up to this time I had no conscience on the subject. 
My friends spoke of me as a liberal giver and I 
thought I was. As a matter of fact I had been no 
giver at all, for my gifts had not reached to the ex- 
tent of my tithes. That is to say all my gifts to the 
Lord's work did not amount to the tenth of my in- 
come. In those days I kept no financial account with 
the Lord, simply giving according to my own stand- 
ard, which is a common practice among Christians and 
one which is totally unworthy of a heart that claims 
fellowship with Jesus. 

I found that tithes and offerings are two distinct 
ideas, tithes being the tenth of one's income, which is 
due God as the taxes are due the State and to with- 
hold it is robbery, while offerings are what we give 
beyond the tithes. Hence in the prophecy of Malachi 
it is said, *' Return unto Me, and I will return unto 
yoUf saitJi JeJiovah of Jiosts. But ye say, Wherein 
shall we return? WUl a man rob God? yet ye rob 



THE FORMATIVE YEARS 77 

Me. But ye say. Wherein Jiave we robbed Thee? In 
tithes and offerings. Ye are cursed with the curse; 
for ye rob Me, even this whole nation. Bring ye the 
whole tithe into the store-hov^e, that there may be 
food in My house, and prove Me now herewith, saith 
Jehovah of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of 
heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall 
root be room enough to receive it.'' 

I became further interested in the wonderful bless- 
ing referred to in the lives of those who practiced 
bringing their tithes and offerings to the Lord. Then 
I found that if we are dishonest in our dealings with 
God regarding our money — unfaithful to our trust as 
stewards of wealth, whether it be little or much — He 
will not entrust us with the true riches of love, joy, 
peace and such like, for Jesus Himself said, ''// there- 
fore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mam- 
mon, who will commit to your trust the true riches f" 
I saw for the first time that our spirituality was de- 
pendent upon the degree of faithful conformity to 
God's will with our money. In the understanding of 
this I felt that I had a new hold on the promises of 
God, for the proper giving of money is one of the 
most spiritual acts of the soul. I have found that the 
permanent practice of the Divine method of giving is 
a source of much joy. The paying of tithes should be 
known to the public as the paying of any other debt 
and so I have been careful in tithing every dollar 
that came into my hands; the making of offerings, 
however, especially those for charity, belong under 
the classification of not letting '^thy left hand know 



78 WORKING WITH GOD 

wJiat tliy riglit liand doetli," observing that offerings 
are always in excess of the tithe. 

The other experience was laying hold of the hope 
of the return of our Lord. For years I had no in- 
terest in the subject — if an3i;Mng somewhat suspi- 
cions of it, due to never having given it careful con- 
sideration. But I became greatly disturbed over the 
inexcusable worldliness of the Church along with the 
gigantically entrenched and deceptively polished sins 
of the world, which overwhelmed me, reminding me 
that my thinking was out of adjustment with the 
facts and I must find better paths in which to think. 
In my study of the Scriptures, to which I always 
went in my dilemma, I found to my amazement that 
the chief promise in the Scriptures is the return of 
our Lord and around it centering the climax of the 
world's cure. It was all so new that at first it did 
not appeal to me with much degree of satisfaction. I 
read several books on the post-millennial interpreta- 
tion of this promise, but they were weak and unsatis- 
factory, leading me to think there was more in the 
pre-millennial interpretation than I had found. 

The traditions of my communion were somewhat 
against this latter interpretation, but that was a mat- 
ter of minor consequence. I was not a sectarian, tak- 
ing without question whatever my communion 
taught. I had been taught to regard the Scriptures as 
primary and all denominational traditions of sec- 
ondary importance, so I felt the traditions of my own 
communion were likewise secondary, being classified 
with the traditions of other communions. This left 
me alone with the Scriptures, of which Alexander 



THE FORMATIVE YEARS 79 

Campbell said, ' ' I have endeavored to read the Scrip- 
tures as though no one had read them before me ; and 
I am as much on my guard against reading them to- 
day, through the medium of my own views yester- 
day, or a week ago, as I am against being influenced 
by any foreign name, authority or system whatso- 
ever." From the clean pages of this book came a 
glow that refreshed my soul, giving me great satisfac- 
tion and joy in the hope of the return of our Lord 
vdth all its glorious consequences. I discovered that 
for the first few hundred years this hope was radiant 
in the Church and was the motive enjoined for all 
godliness. When this hope waned, the Church de- 
parted from the path of Christ, staggering into all 
kinds of worldliness. I do not say it dogmatically, 
but I believe that the Church will never be what she 
ought to be until she sincerely desires the coming of 
Jesus, as the bride in the affairs of every-day life 
desires the coming of the bridegroom. Said the Apos- 
tle John, '' Everyone that Jiatli tJiis hope set on Him 
purifieth himself, even as He is pure.'' The angels 
at the ascension on the mount of Olives said, '^This 
Jesus, who was received up from you into heaven, 
sJiall so come in like manner as ye beheld Him going 
into heaven." Paul said, ''The Lord Himself shall 
descend from heaven, with a shout, with the voice 
of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the 
dead in Christ shall rise first; then we that are alive, 
that are left, shall together with them he caught up 
in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall 
we ever he with the Lord." In the epistle to the He- 
brews it is said, ''So Christ also, having heen once 



80 WORKING WITH GOD 

offered to hear tJie sins of many, shall appear a sec- 
ond time, apart from sin, to tJiem that wait for Him, 
unto salvation/' Then shall He show, according to 
Paul in his letter to Timothy, *^Who is the blessed and 
only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; 
Who only hath immortality, dwelling in light unap- 
proachable; Whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to 
Whom be honor and power eternal. Amen." I came 
to understand Christianity afresh. A greater satis- 
faction came into my heart and a new passion filled 
my pulpit messages. 

The ups and downs of the Christian ministry have 
in them a romance which has no parallel in any other 
service in the world. It has its hardships, disap- 
pointments and heartaches. But what service of any 
consequence has not? It deals with the spiritual 
values of people — their righteousness, faith, love, 
peace and all that have to do with developing the 
nobility and spirituality of manhood. Where is there 
another field of service that can be compared to it? 
Visiting in the name of Christ, sitting by the bedside 
of the sick, comforting those in sorrow, encouraging 
the faint hearted, rebuking sin, calling all to ^'the 
Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world," 
and praying for the rich and the poor, the learned 
and the ignorant, the good and the bad, bearing all up 
to the heavenly Father, irrespective of their condi- 
tion — wonderful. I never think of it, but my own 
imperfection and unholiness arise before me and I 
am overwhelmed that to me God has committed the 
ministry of reconciliation, calling the world to Him- 
self through Jesus Christ our Lord. The soldier who 



THE FORMATIVE YEARS 81 

has stood in the trenches has his wounds that he calls 
his marks of honor. The preacher who cannot show 
some heart scars as the result of his ministerial labors, 
can hardly claim fellowship with that apostle who 
said, "I hear branded on my body tJie marks of 
Jesus." 

Because of fidelity to his cause the soldier laughs 
at his long marches, his food of hard-tack and his sleep 
in his army blanket on the cold ground out under 
the midnight sky. Those are experiences that he 
never wearies of telling with no minor note in his 
song nor murmur on his lips. The preacher's ex- 
periences dare not be less heroic, lest he compromise 
his Lord and Saviour. Often I have felt like aban- 
doning the task, but this principle kept me at my 
post, enabling me to meet cheerfully my problems and 
to bear patiently my burdens, remembering that 
Paul's exhortation to Timothy was, ^^ Suffer JiardsMp 
with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus." Some- 
how I have always felt a more intimate personal fel- 
lowship with Timothy than with Paul, because he 
appeared to be nearer my stature in service — a kind 
of yokefellow with him, whose two letters from Paul 
I often read as letters from the apostle to me. Paul 
lifted the ideal of the Christian ministry to its right- 
ful place in that fine saying of his, when he declared, 
**/ have been crucified with Christ; and it is no 
longer I that live, hut Christ liveth in me; and that 
life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith; the 
faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and 
gave Himself up for me." George Macdonald de- 
scribed the path of duty in these beautiful lines : 



82 WORKING WITH GOD 

* * I said, ' Let me walk in the fields ; ' 
He said, * Nay, walk in the town ; * 
I said, * There are no flowers there ; ' 
He said, *No flowers, but. a crown.' 

"I said, 'But the sky is black, 

There is nothing but noise and din;" 
But He wept as He sent me back — 
'There is more,' He said, 'there is sin.' 

' ' I said, ' But the air is thick. 

And fogs are veiling the sun;' 

He answered, 'Yet hearts are sick, 

And souls in the dark undone.' 

"I said, "I shall miss the light. 

And friends will miss me, they say ; ' 
He answered me, 'Choose to-night 
If I am to miss you or they.' 

"I pleaded for time to be given; 

He said, 'Is it hard to decide? 

It will not seem hard in heaven 

To have followed the steps of your Guide. ' 

' ' I cast one look at the field. 

Then set my face to the town; 
He said, 'My child, do you yield? 

Will you leave the flowers for the crown?' 

"Then into His hand went mine. 
And into my heart came He. 
And I walk in a light divine 
The path I had feared to see. ' ' 

The work of the Third Church was advanc- 
ing with promise. The faith, patience and serv- 
ice of the people were growing. 

After all human life cannot be developed if it is 
not involved in problems. They are the sun and the 
storm upon the flowers. There is no education to be 
compared with standing at one's post, seeking ad- 
justment to conditions in the fear of God. I shall 
always be glad of my ministry at the Third Church, 



THE FORMATIVE TEARS 83 

aside from the fact that succeeding years brought 
more permanent results to my labors there. I re- 
call with no little pleasure my fellowship with many 
fine characters, that gave themselves freely to the 
building of that work. The faith, patience and hope 
of the people there grew like flowers in a garden. 
Many periods of the greatest satisfaction came into 
my experience. I had no outer evidence but I could 
not suppress the feeling that somehow we were com- 
ing to an open door, marking a new epoch in our 
work. I had not talked with any one about my feel- 
ings in this matter, as I never did in other instances, 
but I kept asking God, Give me patience to wait as 
well as to bear whatever new burdens may be laid 
upon me. 



A Lesson from Rembrandt 



When in Rotterdam on one occasion I ob- 
served that the museum there contained the first 
painting of Rembrandt. It was only a rough, 
unartistic daubing, and you wonder why such a 
thing should be in a frame until you read in the 
corner that it was the first painting of the great 
Dutch artist. On the other side are the master- 
pieces of his genius. And then you find your- 
self thinking of the boy faithfully appiying 
himself to his passion through years of hardest 
toil, until you can fairly see the great artist 
putting his finishing touches on * ' The Presenta- 
tion in the Temple," or ^'The Night Watch.'* 

A great distance intervenes between begin- 
ning and success, but fidelity can bridge the 
chasm. When Carey was asked the secret of his 
success, he said, ^'I can plod." Edison has well 
said that diligent application lays hold upon 
achievement, and with little regard for day or 
night he bends all of his energies to the con- 
summation of his thought that electrictiy may 
do some new thing. For him to wish is only a 
step from possession. Nothing wrong in human 
life is beyond correction, if that life will bend 
faithfully to the task. Link your life to Jesus 
Christ and stand at your post. — In The Sunday 
School Times. 



84 



V 

The Christian Temple 



One afternoon in the early winter of 1902, I was 
returning from my rounds of visiting, walking up 
North Carey Street to my home and thinking over 
my work. More than ten years had passed since I 
had taken up the ministry at the Third Church. 
Two branch churches and the Girls' Club had been 
established, while the Third Church had grown to 
a membership of nearly six hundred. The building, 
however, was not yet out of debt and on the land 
was a two thousand dollar ground rent at six per cent 
interest. Besides, there was no possibility of enlarg- 
ing the building, since there was a public alley on 
either side. About a year before a wealthy gentle- 
man — not a member of my church, for I had no 
wealthy members — had said to me, as he gave me a 
check for five hundred dollars for our first branch 
church, ''When you get ready to buy a good site and 
erect a larger building for yourself, come to see me. 
I would much prefer standing back of you on a 
proposition of that character than making contribu- 
tions to these little churches. ' ' The suggestion started 
me searching for a site which in the course of some 
months I found but a few years proved it not to be 
the most desirable location for a church. However, it 
appeared desirable then and I was to see my friend 

85 



86 WORKING ^^^TH god 

the next day, but that night, while entertaining some 
guests in his home, he was suddenly stricken and 
died. My expectations vanished like a dream, leav- 
ing for a time the uncomfortable memory that my 
friend had planned to do very much more than he had 
promised me, as his brother told me when I called the 
next day at the home. Conditions, however, were 
more satisfactory in the life of the Third Church than 
they had ever been, but the experiences of the last 
ten years had somewhat accustomed me to face grave 
problems, if not apparently impossible ones, and my 
heart leaned strongly toward difficult tasks. I was 
thinking over all these things, when a bright faced 
boy accosted me, ''Evening paper, sir?" At any 
other time perhaps I would not have bought the paper, 
but being aroused suddenly from my meditations and 
the call coming from a bright faced boy — for chil- 
dren's faces are pictured on my heart as easily as on 
a camera — the next moment a coin passed from me to 
him and the paper was in my hand. Then the boy 
said, ' ' They sold Carrett Park to-day. ' ' Perhaps the 
park, which was about six blocks away from where 
we were standing, had been the playground of this 
boy, for there appeared to be an accent of some re- 
gret in his announcement, but at once I thought of 
it as a site for a church and perhaps as God's call 
for me to act. 

The park occupied two blocks on North Fulton 
Avenue and had been used for years by the resi- 
dents of that section, but for some reason it had never 
been deeded to the city. Some controversy arose 
between the Park Board and the trustees of the Gar- 



THE CHRISTIAN TEMPLE 87 

rett estate and the park was suddenly put on the 
market. The paper gave an account of the sale. 
Forthwith I went to the first drug store I came to, 
called up the purchaser and asked for an option of 
ten days on a specified section, including at the same 
time an approximate price. Most of Baltimore is 
under a system of irredeemable ground rents ; besides, 
all the ground in the western section of the city being 
covered by blocks of solid buildings, it would have 
been very difficult to have found a satisfactory 
church site except at great cost. So this appeared 
to be an opportunity and there was no time to be 
lost. The officers of the church were called together 
and their judgment was favorable to the move, al- 
though somewhat timidly so, for it was a big under- 
taking in the light of all the circumstances. It is al- 
ways customary to sell the old property when a 
church moves to a new location ; but, in this instance, 
it was decided to retain the Third Church property 
as one of the branch stations in the larger programme 
that was gradually unfolding. The new location was 
ten blocks away and up a hill, making it further than 
if it were on a level; besides, the old field was still 
fruitful and would be for years to come; also many 
of the members lived in that neighborhood. The sale 
of the old property would have given us some ready 
cash, which we certainly needed for this move, for we 
had no money, but we were looking for the enlarge- 
ment of the work rather than retrenchment. Occa- 
sionally a church is justified in selling its old property 
for a new location, but in the majority of cases it is a 
sad reflection on a church running away from the 



88 WORKING WITH GOD 

people whom it appears the Lord has sent to the very 
doors of the church. To say that the members have 
moved away from that locality is no good reason. 
Let those who have moved away build a church in 
their new neighborhood, while those who have been 
left behind do double service in helping to save the 
drifting and foreign population that has moved in. 
A church is not of much value in the world's salva- 
tion if it does not stand at its post of duty, irre- 
spective of conditions or nationality, for the Gospel 
is for all nations and all classes. 

The next day was Sunday and the announcement 
was made to the church, the whole plan being fully 
explained. That day an appeal was sent to the 
Church Extension Society of the Disciples for a loan 
of five thousand two hundred and fifty dollars for 
the lot, which was an under price, we, however, to 
pay an additional thousand for grading it. Our op- 
tion expiring in a few days, it was necessary to have 
the answer by telegram. It came in time and it was 
favorable. We began at once to prepare for the 
building of the chapel on the rear of the lot. It took 
some time to raise enough money to start the building, 
but after while the corner-stone was laid, the chil- 
dren of the Sunday-school leading in the procession 
from the Third Church, each one carrying flowers. 
After several songs, a prayer and an address by F. D. 
Power, of Washington, two children from the primary 
department of the Sunday-school used their trowels, 
followed by the whole procession passing by the newly 
laid stone, laying flowers on it until it was a mound 
of blossoms. Several thousand persons witnessed the 



THE CHRISTIAN TEMPLE 89 

ceremony. It was a gala day in our history. The 
building of the chapel seemed to give us a foothold for 
this new and enlarged work, and the main building 
on the front of the lot was to come later. 

Immediately following the corner-stone laying, I 
hurried to Virginia to the bedside of my mother and 
sister, who always spent the summer at the old home 
at Dunnsville. They had lived with me from the be- 
ginning of my residence in Baltimore. For the last 
few months both had become almost absolute invalids, 
although I did not think at that time that they were 
so near the end, but they went in the sunset almost 
together, my sister going first, just a few hours after 
I reached there, and a few days later my mother fol- 
lowed. Both were buried in the Belle View graveyard 
by my father and several children near the Rappa- 
hannock River, whose ebb and flow of tides ever re- 
mind me of the lights and shadows in God's deal- 
ings — the great and unfathomable mysteries of Divine 
providence. I would have been left in desolation, 
but for the radiant hope of the Gospel. 

My mother was so much to me. She had reared 
me to manhood and then she in turn had become 
somewhat a child, being an invalid for many years, 
and then it fell to my pleasure to minister to her 
wants in a dozen little things she did for me when I 
was a child and her sweet smile drove away many of 
my cares, as long years before I, as a laughing boy at 
her knee, drove away her cares. When a child she 
taught me of God and then guided me to a larger 
knowledge of Him and, while she was an invalid, I 
learned unconsciously from her those holy lessons of 



90 WORKING WITH GOD 

patience, gentleness and kindness — those principles 
of God that can only be learned in experience. 

Since my sister was ten years old, she had never 
been without pain, due to the missetting of a broken 
limb. Sometimes she suffered greatly, using crutches 
occasionally and spending a part of nearly every day 
on the bed, but notwithstanding all this, she went 
through college, graduating at Norfolk College for 
Young Ladies, took an active part in Christian work, 
by her assistance made it possible for me to conduct 
The Christian Tribune and wrought cheerfully at 
every task, teaching me the secret of power over pain 
and the beauty of spiritual refinement through sor- 
row. For some reason, I know not, I had found favor 
with God, for not often is one so richly blessed as to 
have the sacred burden of an invalid mother and an 
invalid sister through many years. I still wait in the 
glow of the sunset for the morning light, when I 
shall see them again. 

After several weeks I returned to Baltimore. Al- 
though we had some difficulties to meet in the erec- 
tion of the chapel, especially the great fire of 1904, 
when much of the city was burned, setting us back 
very much, nevertheless the finances came up sur- 
prisingly well. No money was to be raised except by 
direct gifts from the people, all illicit methods such as 
bazaars, suppers and so forth being discarded at the 
outset. Once a payment was due and we did not 
have the money to meet it, but we sought to keep the 
secret of our embarrassment from the public lest the 
people become discouraged. The Lord, however, knew 
our problem. The day before it was due one of the 



THE CHRISTIAN TEMPLE 91 

women of the church called, expressing her concern 
about the undertaking, and gave us sixteen hun- 
dred dollars. This was just the amount we needed. I 
afterwards learned that in order to do this she mort- 
gaged her home. When we were up against another 
hard place, one of our men, who had several weeks 
before received a bequest of twenty thousand dollars, 
called on a Monday morning, bringing his tithe of two 
thousand dollars. One experience after another fol- 
lowed this until on January 15, 1905, the chapel was 
opened under the name of the Christian Temple, with 
G. W. Muckley, of Kansas City, preaching the sermon. 
A small debt was on the property, which up to that 
time had cost about twenty-two thousand dollars. 

The name of the new church was of considerable 
concern to us — not of course as to whether the great 
Scriptural terms for the church would be used, such 
as ''Christian," ''Church of Christ," or "Church of 
God, ' ' for from these terms we cannot escape, even if 
we wish to, but as to the local designation, lest we de- 
nominationalize the term "Christian" as is some- 
times done in the use of such a term as ' ' Third Chris- 
tian Church ' ' when there were four hundred Christian 
Churches in Baltimore before the Third Church was 
thought of ; or the name of the avenue when churches 
of other communions had associated that name with 
their work. Other communions can use their names 
as they like, but the name "Christian" must be 
used in relation both to Christ and to other Chris- 
tians. So we sought to find a name that would bring 
us into fellowship with all believers in Jesus. At the 



92 WORKING WITH GOD 

instance of one of the officers of the church the name 
Christian Temple was suggested and adopted. 

In dividing the membership of the Third Church, 
part going to the new church and part remaining 
at the old, the greatest caution was observed. I 
stated frankly to the church that my plan was to take 
the new work, but I did not intend to ask anyone to 
go with me, nor would it be regarded as friendly to 
either work for anyone to try to influence others one 
way or the other, each member being left free to make 
his own choice in the fear of God. The new work was 
to be established and that meant sacrifice; the old 
work was to be maintained and that called for fidelity. 
So strictly was this programme adhered to that it was 
consummated without the slightest friction, although 
after the division had been made some friction in the 
old work developed that gave us concern for a time. 
But on the Sunday before the Temple was opened, 
the decision of the members was to be made public by 
those who had decided to go to the new work signing 
the book on one side of the building, and those who 
had decided to remain in the old work signing the 
book on the other side. There were nearly six hun- 
dred names on the roll of the Third Church at that 
time and few more than half were contributors. Of 
these two hundred and thirty-seven signed for the 
new church and seventy signed for the old. Inas- 
much as all of the church officers signed for the new 
church, several of these were asked to reconsider their 
decision, remaining in the old work for a limited 
time, if not permanently, so as to help in its reestab- 
lishment. The Third Church was to be henceforth 



THE CHRISTIAN TEMPLE 93 

known as the Calhoun Street Church, being the third 
branch church. 

The first person baptized at the Temple was a 
Chinaman, a short while before there having been 
started a Chinese Sunday-school in connection with 
the Temple. This was somewhat a prophecy of the 
missionary policy we were to follow in the years to 
come, and our programme at that time was to estab- 
lish our next branch work in China by paying the an- 
nual salary for the support of a missionary there. 
With the opening of the second year in the Temple, 
1906, this was done, and Miss Edna P. Dale, of Iowa, 
became our missionary at Wuhu, China. She has 
since been transferred to Nanking, where she is 
"witnessing for the Lord in a service that has brought 
great blessing to the Temple, as well as to the Chinese, 
to whom she faithfully ministers. 

There was hardly a service in this new work with- 
out decisions for Christ and nearly every Sunday 
new members were enrolled. Sometimes the chapel 
was so crowded on Sunday evening that services were 
started in advance of the announced hour. On one 
of these evenings William Newcomer, who lived about 
seventy miles from Baltimore in Western Maryland, 
came to the city to attend the evening service, but he 
was unable to get in. Talking about it shortly after- 
wards, he inquired why we did not complete the 
building, putting up the main structure on the front 
of the lot, but the answer to that was very simple, 
which was that as soon as we were able we would. 
He asked how much it w^ould cost and, when informed 
that according to the architect's estimate it would 



94 WORKING WITH GOD 

be about twenty thousand dollars, he forthwith said 
that he would give us that amount if we would be- 
gin at once. This was so much more than I had ex- 
pected from any one source that I hardly knew how to 
receive it. Mr. Newcomer and I had been friends for 
years — close friends. I loved to call him ''Uncle 
Billy, " as he was affectionately spoken of in his circle 
of friends. He was a man of fine character and was 
liberal with his money. I had received no gifts from 
him, however, and I do not recall ever having asked 
him for any, as I rarely do of any one. I did think, 
however, that sometime he might give me fifty or per- 
haps a hundred dollars for our work, but no such 
thought ever came to me that he would do what he 
had now offered and I could not help saying, "7f is 
the Lord/' 

The condition of the gift was that we should be- 
gin building at once, although he would not be able 
to make us the gift right away, perhaps not for sev- 
eral years, but he advised that we go in the market, 
borrowing the money as best we could, not using his 
name, however. We had already discovered that it 
is no easy task to borrow money for a church. But 
we were in the midst of unusual conditions and who 
knew but that just as unusual willingness to loan 
money to us had been put in the heart of some one 
amply able to do this ? With some hesitation I called 
on a Lutheran banker, with whom I had some ac- 
quaintance and later an esteemed friendship both with 
him and his family. He kindly agreed to make the 
loan of twenty thousand dollars at four per cent. He 
had already given several hundred dollars to the 



THE CHRISTIAN TEMPLE 95 

building of the chapel, indicating an interest in the 
work. As he carefully went over the drawings for the 
new building, he said, ' ' I am sure you will never get 
this building for twenty thousand dollars. It will 
be more like thirty or perhaps forty thousand dollars 
in addition to what you will be able to raise in the 
church. ' ' When the bids were gotten in, it was found 
that he was quite correct ; consequently we called on 
him for nearly the highest amount named. However, 
I almost hesitated at the time for fear the obliga- 
tion was too great for the visible resources of pay- 
ment. Under ordinary circumstances it would have 
been, but recalling the fidelity of our people I felt 
that they could be trusted; besides, this was the 
Lord's work as He had witnessed time and again. 
Every step we were taking indicated that the leader- 
ship was with Him, Who was handling the hearts of 
all those who were interested. 

The corner-stone of the main building was laid 
September 7, 1907, with ceremonies similar to those 
attending the laying of the corner-stone of the 
chapel. Eight months later it was completed with 
F. M. Rains, of Cincinnati, preaching the sermon, 
but we did not dare to let the church know the full 
amount of the indebtedness, lest they become dis- 
couraged, it only being known to the trustees until 
the debt had been reduced to fifteen thousand dollars. 
By April, 1911, more than a thousand names were en- 
rolled as members, having signed the church cove- 
nant, which is not a declaration of dogmas, but 



96 WORKING WITH GOD 

rather a declaration of obedience, affection and hope.* 
Some years were not so good as others, but in every 
year there were abundant blessings. Our discour- 
agements and achievements mingled together as the 
clouds and sunshine of a day. There had been no 
year in the Temple without great victories for Christ, 
so that each year served as a foundation for greater 
blessings in the succeeding years. Church letters 
are only granted to those members who keep in touch 
with the church by attendance and contributions, en- 
velopes for contributions being given each person on 
the day he takes membership at the time he signs the 
covenant. If one is absent from the church for a year 
and does not contribute anything for a year, he is 
asked to join some church on statement in the city 
where he has moved. 

I learned at the very outset of my ministry that 
the one fundamental method of pastoral visitation is 
a definite and personal concern for every member of 
the flock, becoming a kinsman to all. As the physi- 
cian goes on his rounds, believing that he has the cure 
for most of the ills of the human body, I go on my 
rounds with no less confidence; believing that the 



*The church covenant, which every member signs after being 
given the right hand of fellowship, is as follows: OUR COVENANT: 
We, the undersigned, hereby affirm our allegiance to Jesus Christ and 
pledge our obedience to Him, the only begotten Son of God and our 
Lord and Saviour. 

We offer ourselves that we may bear the fruit of the Spirit, which 
is "love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 
meekness, self-control," and may help to bring others to the knowledge 
of salvation, remembering that He is able to supply all our needs and 
has said, "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." 

We rejoice that, at the exclusion of all other names, we are 
counted worthy to wear Christ's name — not the only Christians, but 
Christians only — having publicly confessed our faith in Him, repented 
of our sins, been baptized into Him and are the receivers of His Holy 
Spirit, "in Whom we are sealed unto the day of redemption." 

We promise to read the Scriptures, especially the New Testament, 
which is the last voice of God to us; at the same time recognizing the 



THE CHRISTIAN TEMPLE 97 

Gospel of Jesus Christ is the one cure for all the ills 
of the soul, stimulating the discouraged to be courage- 
ous, the troubled to be comforted, the despondent to be 
hopeful, the cheerless to be cheerful, the unfaithful 
to be faithful and bearing to all the consciousness of 
God. I know of no bigger business in the world. My 
best days were those that brought me in contact with 
all sorts of people and I sought to be equally at home 
with every condition of life. If in the preparation of 
a sermon or an article for the press my thoughts 
did not work with ease, I would sometimes put on my 
hat and stroll through the streets, talking here and 
there with people, sometimes with groups of children, 
or make a round of calls, getting the problems of 
life at first hand in the homes of the people. Usually 
I came back with messages seething through my brain, 
prompting me to state the Gospel in terms of human 
experience, for the needs of men would come up be- 
fore me like the hungry crying for bread. Frequently 
I spoke three and four times on Sunday, and always 
several times during the week, averaging easily a ser- 
mon a day, through the year. 

It was a poor week indeed that some calls were not 



Old Testament to be God's first revelation to mankind, without which 
the New Testament could not have been — "men spake from God, be- 
ing moved by the Holy Spirit." 

We promise to pray that we "may be filled with the knowledge of 
His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding," "looking for the 
blessed hope and appearing of the glory of the great God and our 
Saviour Jesus Christ, Who gave Himself for us that He might redeem 
us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a people for His own 
possession, zealous of good works." 

"Unto Him that sitteth on the throne, and unto the Lamb, be the 
blessing, and the honor, and the glory, and the dominion, for ever and 
ever." Amen. 

THEREFORE, in consequence of our being members of the 
Church of God, established fifty days after the resurrection of Jesus — 
on the day of Pentecost — and in full agreement with this covenant, we 
subscribe ourselves, on this day, as members of that congregation of 
Disciples of Christ in Baltimore City, known as the Christian Temple. 



98 WORKING WITH GOD 

made. My numerical standard of Adsiting was 
twenty-five calls a week if I were in the city for the 
full week and no extra demands were pressing upon 
me, which is fairly good visiting, but my other tasks 
required some time and that was the best that I could 
venture to accomplish under the circumstances, al- 
though in the last week of my twenty-fifth year I 
made seventy-two calls. In a year I usually made 
from seven to eight or nine hundred and some years a 
thousand calls. One of my most faithful members and 
an official in the church used to remind me from time 
to time that if the pulpit preparation or the visiting 
of the people had to be neglected, neglect the latter in 
preference to the former. It is wise advice. Visit- 
ing is an important part of the ministry, but the 
message from the pulpit has to do with that personal 
equipment of the whole congregation that cannot be 
neglected too much except to the loss of the spiritual 
efficiency of the church. There is a joy in both pul- 
pit preparation and visiting. If it were a home with 
some burden it would be appropriate to have a prayer ; 
in other instances it may have been a visit of good 
cheer and hope; but in every instance some thought 
of Christ, the Scriptures or the Church was empha- 
sized according to the circumstances. John Watson 
once finely said, ' ' The divinity of a sermon is in pro- 
portion to its humanity." It is so with our living. 
Vrhile I may have often failed, and I am sure I did 
sometimes, nevertheless I tried to bear the spirit of 
humanness as I came in contact with the people — 
just a plain, every day man among all sorts of men. 



THE CHRISTIAN TEMPLE 99 

I had certain general principles governing my 
ministry that might be expressed as follows: 

1. I will meet my problems courageously, leaving 
the results of my labors as matters between God and 
me, rather than between the people and me; conse- 
quently I shall always try to be contented. 

2. I will cultivate my kinship with all peoples, ir- 
respective of race, religion, politics or social condi- 
tions; consequently I shall always try to be friendly. 

3. I will remember that my time at most is short 
and that there is much to be done in helping to re- 
deem the world ; consequently I shall always try to be 
industrious. 

4. I will be free in my search for truth, not tying 
myself to any special system of philosophy or the- 
ology, but I will read freely what others have writ- 
ten and listen to what others say ; consequently I shall 
always try to be open-minded. 

5. I will be indifferent to adverse criticism of my- 
self, however cutting it may be, other than to profit by 
it if it is true, or leave it to die if untrue; conse- 
quently I shall always try never to take anyone to 
task for speaking adversely of me or to me. 

6. I will be careful regarding money, not only 
making its interest secondary to the interest of peo- 
ple, but I will so conduct my own finances as to make 
my method commendable to others, always living 
within my income and paying my debts ; consequently 
I shall always try to be square in my financial deal- 
ings. 

7. I will serve the people, both saints and sinners, 
rich and poor, educated and ignorant and, if I must 
choose between two, my choice must be the least ; con- 
sequently I shall always try to go to the one who 
needs me most. 

8. I will treat others as I would have others treat 



100 WORIONG \^^TH GOD 

me, and should others violate this principle by some 
antagonistic conduct towards me, I will endeavor to be 
patient at first and then, if conditions justify, I will 
forbid further encroachments; consequently I shall 
always try to prevent others unnecessarily bothering 
me by encroaching on me. 

9. I will keep alive in my heart the desire to live 
in the Spirit of Christ, but sometimes I will do wrong, 
offending Chi'ist and others by word or conduct or 
both; consequently I shall always try never to be 
ashamed of repentance towards God and apologies 
toward others. 

The expression of these principles has left some 
costly marks in my life, but my ministry was a wit- 
ness to these principles. Sometimes I failed ; then I 
tried again. Sometimes I succeeded; then I knew 
my Helper was God. But I sought to interpret the 
principles of Christ in my daily workshop as I dealt 
with men and women. The least in the building of a 
church is the work of stone-masons, brick-masons, car- 
penters, plasterers and painters. All this, when com- 
pleted, shall go into decay sooner or later, but in 
building the Christian Temple, we tried to build for 
two worlds and the real building had to do with our- 
selves. 

To meet the necessity of worship in our lives, we 
sought to make the Sunday morning service a definite 
contribution to that end. On Sunday evening the 
whole service is unconventional and generally evan- 
gelistic, but in the morning there is a moderately 
dignified service — the organ prelude, the congrega- 
tion standing and singing Gloria Patri, followed by 
responsive reading from the Scriptures, then a hymn, 



THE CHRISTIAN TEMPLE 101 

with the congregation seated, then the Scripture les- 
sen, followed by responsive reading of a Psalm, with 
the congregation standing again, and remaining 
standing through the morning prayer, then a hymn, 
call for the offering with a short prayer, followed by 
the choir singing, then on the return to the pulpit 
with the plates, the congregation arises, singing, "All 
things come of Thee, Lord, and of Thine own have 
we given Thee. Amen. ' ' After this comes the sermon 
and the invitation hymn. 

Without being dismissed, we pass to the observ- 
ance of the Lord's Supper, inviting all Christians of 
other communions to be as free in partaking of it as 
ourselves (sometimes emphasizing that it was this de- 
sire for freedom of all Christians at the Lord's Sup- 
per that gave the Disciples their call for Christian 
union in the opening of the nineteenth century) , then 
reading Paul's account of the supper in 1 Corinthians 
11 :23-29, or the account given in one of the Gospels, 
followed by a prayer of confession of our transgres- 
sions, closing with the Lord's Prayer repeated in uni- 
son, and then chanting the tAventy-third Psalm, (as 
Jesus and His apostles did, only they chanted Psalms 
115-118) when the deacons, who have occupied special 
seats at the front from the beginning of the service, 
come to the pulpit platform and the emblems are 
served from the table directly against the wall, im- 
mediately back of the pulpit stand. There is no more 
music until we come to the doxology, for there must be 
quiet if we would pray, examining our hearts and seek- 
ing favor with G-od. Thanks are given by one of the 
officers for the bread, which is then distributed, each 



102 WORKING WITH GOD 

person holding it and praying until all have been 
served, when the minister, who usually presides, says, 
''Jesus said, ^Tliis is My hody, wliicli is for you: this 
do in remembrance of 3Ie.' " and all eat together. 
Thanks are returned in the same manner for the cup 
and, when all have been served, it is likewise said, 
''Jesus said, 'TJiis cup is tlie new covenant in m.y 
blood: this do, as often as ye drink it, in remembrance 
of Me/ ^' and all drink together, followed by praying 
in unison one of Paul's prayers, especially that in 
Ephesians 1 :3-8, then the doxology, with the congrega- 
tion standing, then the blessing, which the whole con- 
gregation unites in saying, as follows: ''The Lord 
bless thee, and keep thee: the Lord make His face to 
shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee; the Lord 
lift up His countenance upon thee, and give thee 
peace. Amen," and then the benediction, after which 
the entire congregation is seated for a moment or two 
for silent prayer, no one moving until the organ be- 
gins playing the postlude. 

This has proved to be a worshipful order of service. 
It is simple, moves easily from start to finish without 
announcing any part of it and one's spiritual life is 
helped in its atmosphere. There is a ritualistic ele- 
ment in human life. It can be abused by overdoing 
it, as in many instances has been done; it can be 
neglected, as it frequently is; but just so there is 
enough order, with the enrichment of all the people 
sharing intelligently in definite parts, it will contrib- 
ute to the cultivation of worship, for after all, wor- 
ship does not come very easily to most of us. Often 
I have to discipline myself severely to bring properly 




CIIRISTIAX 



Chapel Opened January 15. 1905. Main Building Opened September 
29, 1907. 



THE CHRISTIAN TEMPLE 103 

before our heavenly Father my adoration and thanks- 
giving. One may be able to listen to the sermon if it 
is interesting and go through the observance of the 
liord's Supper as a duty; but if that is all, there has 
been no worship, no changing of one's disposition for 
its adjustment to the Divine will. Every reasonable 
help must be given the soul to experience the con- 
sciousness of communion with God, and if the public 
service furnishes that help, it has served its purpose, 
recognizing that every man must be given freedom to 
approach God in his own way. Forms and ceremonies 
have their charm and possess a certain degree of cul- 
ture, but ornamentation is to be avoided. I speak the 
sentiments of many when I affirm that simplicity is 
the strongest method of expression and the most satis- 
fying. I recall on one occasion when I returned from 
Europe, where forms are more strictly observed, as 
in formal society in America for that matter, I was 
refreshed as by the breeze of a spring morning, as I 
took the train in New York for Baltimore, to hear the 
boy going through the train, crying, ' ' Peter 's choco- 
lates ' ' and right after him, another crying ' ' Ainslee 's 
Magazine." I don't mind being called *' Doctor" if 
aU in the circle have that degree or a similar title, but 
if there is one in the circle without it, then I like to 
be called ''Mister," which after all is the finest and 
strongest title belonging to democracy. Coming out 
of a meeting where titles were in abundance, I was 
introduced by Prof. Rufus M. Jones of Hjaverford 
College, in a meeting in Philadelphia as "We are 
glad to have Peter Ainslie of Baltimore with us and 
he will now speak. ' ' I liked it. 



104 WORKING WITH GOD 

Perhaps I should speak here of baptism. In the 
erection of the Temple, much time and expense were 
put on the erection of a proper baptistry. It is in the 
form of a temple, to the right of the pulpit. The 
front and sides are of white marble with glass set 
into the marble about ten inches from the top and 
the water comes up on the glass about three inches, 
being seen from any part of the auditorium. Before 
a person comes to be baptized, whether at a public 
service or privately, when only immediate friends are 
present, which is frequently done, he is advised to 
read the sixth chapter of Eomans, especially the first 
eleven verses and pray as a further spiritual prepara- 
tion. When he gets to the church, he is clothed in a 
white robe, emblematic of the new life he is entering 
upon, rather than a black robe, which is so commonly 
used for some reason I know not. Immediately pre- 
ceding his baptism, the spiritual significance of the 
ordinance of baptism is fully explained to him again 
with its responsibilities and blessings, then a prayer, 
the baptism following and the benediction. 

Our Wednesday evening meeting has always held 
a place of importance. Almost exclusively at this 
meeting the affairs of the Temple are discussed, this 
being rarely ever done at either of the services on 
Sunday. The attendance of this meeting frequently 
includes several hundred persons. It begins at eight 
o^clock and closes promptly at nine. There is no 
regular order except at the close. Sometimes the 
whole meeting is given to prayer, before each prayer 
it being clearly stated what is to be prayed for ; occa- 
sionally it will be a testimony meeting; still other 



THE CHRISTIAN TEMPLE 105 

times an expository discourse by the minister. But 
always at the close opportunity is given for requests 
for prayer, including prayer for the sick, for those in 
trouble, for those out of Christ, for whom there is 
special concern, and for blessing upon the Sunday 
services of the following Sunday, usually the minister 
offering this prayer. The more I learn of prayer the 
easier my work is, and if the Christian Temple ever 
becomes a perpetual blessing to this city, it will be 
because the minister and the people have gone back to 
prayer as the way by which to find the favor of Grod. 



The Heart's Covenant 



'Tis God from heaven we hear, 

As the Spirit listens near. 

We hear His voice within us, 

In tones of love most glorious. 

Then like flick 'ring candles burning, 

Our thoughts waver in discerning. 

Till from God comes gentle light. 

Revealing in us sin's blight. 

Such times, noisy words are vain. 

Thought ineets thought in silent pain. 

Curtained alone wdth Him and us, 

It is His strong voice speaking, thus, 

''I will blot out all thy sin; 

Gird thy strength to again begin. ' ' 

To walk in truth's path anew 

Adorns our best with golden hue. 

''Tis done! Thi'ough wide gates of sense 

Speaks love in fragrant incense. 

Then all on earth and all above 

Will know our hearts are bound in love. 



106 



VI 

The Christian Temple 

(Continued) 



The Church is under a commission from Jesus 
Christ, which reads as follows: ''All aufhority hath 
been given unto me in heaven and on earth. Go ye, 
therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, bap- 
tizing them into the name of the Father and of the 
Son and of the Holy Spirit; teaching them to observe 
all things whatsoever I commanded you; a'iid lo, I 
am with you always, even unto the end of the world.' ^ 
I came to learn early that both the minister and the 
local church had to be evangelistic or they ceased to 
be holders of this commission. There are widely dif- 
ferent opinions as to the methods of evangelization 
and these are of secondary consequence, although too 
frequently the Church spends her time looking for 
m.ethods when God is looking for men. But there can 
be only one opinion as to this commission. One must 
either go or not go, obey or disobey. It does not mean 
that all must go to Africa, Asia or South America. 
Some must go to those places, others must go among 
the people of Baltimore, but all must go. All must 
have a part, for the duty of the Church is to evan- 
gelize the world, witnessing everywhere that Jesus 
is the Christ. There is no escape from this. 

Being in a city where three-fourths of the churches 
observe Lent — Roman Catholic, Protestant Episcopal, 
Lutheran and Reformed — while nearly all the other 

107 



108 WORKING WITH GOD 

churches observe Holy Week, it became expedient to 
make use of this season of prayer and instruction by 
special services at the Temple. Shortly after the 
opening of Lent, a call is made on Wednesday eve- 
ning and the following Sunday evening for homes to 
be opened for prayer and instruction services, at the 
same time leaders for these meetings are called for. 
Thirty to forty homes are secured with the same num- 
ber of leaders. The meetings begin at eight o'clock 
and close at eight forty-five, usually on Tuesday eve- 
nings, so the report of each meeting can be given at 
the Wednesday evening meetings at the Temple. The 
subjects are the same for each week, being brief out- 
lines or questions and answers on Bible themes, with 
one or two prayers and if desired perhaps a song or 
two, but it is chiefly a meeting for prayer and Bible 
study.* 

Four or six weeks bring us up to Palm Sunday. 
Beginning on that day and continuing through the 
week to Easter, evangelistic services are held at the 
Temple every evening. It has proved to be a very 
blessed time for us, both for deepening the spiritual 
life of the church and increasing the membership. In 
this one week of 1914 there were one hundred and 
fourteen decisions for Christ. Besides this an evan- 
gelistic meeting of about two weeks is held in the 
Temple in the fall or midwinter with sometimes some 
other than the minister doing the preaching. At 
various periods we have had a league of personal 



*Sometimes a little book is used entitled Hand Book of Christian 
Instruction, being arranged catechetically, the leader reading the ques- 
tion and the people the answer, with an opportunity for a brief com- 
ment after each answer if it is desired. This Hand Book of Christian 
Instruction is published by Seminary House, Baltimore. 



THE CHRISTIAN TEMPLE 109 

workers, who meet after the Sunday evening services 
for reports on the day's work. Sometimes after the 
Wednesday evening services, this league has met for 
instruction in personal work under a competent lead- 
er. "We have never encouraged persons to go through 
the audience during the services and bring people to 
the front, as in some evangelistic meetings, but we do 
encourage persons to talk with people after the bene- 
diction while they are standing around or slowly 
moving out and sometimes during the services of an 
after meeting at the regular Sunday evening services, 
when only those remain who are definitely interested. 
All, however, are encouraged to accompany to the 
front pew those whom they have persuaded to accept 
Christ, so that it is not an uncommon thing to see 
some one walking up the aisle to the front pew ac- 
companied by a Christian boy or girl or grown person, 
a parent or perhaps a friend, of whom it would be 
said, *^He hr ought Mm to Jesiis.'* 

In the winter of 1914 we began theater meetings. 
I do not know how we started into this, other than in 
talking about it on one occasion in a half jocular man- 
ner, I found a group of men ready to undertake it. 
The readiness to do things has always been one of the 
fine features that has characterized the Temple work. 
The only request I made of the committee was to 
select one of the smallest theaters, so we might be 
sure of a full house. Inasmuch as the Temple would 
be closed on that evening, several hundred more be- 
sides our regular Sunday evening audience would 
perhaps fill it. However, to my discouragement, the 
committee selected the Hippodrome, which is the 



110 WORKING WITH GOD 

largest theater in the city, seating between three and 
fourth thousand people. It is located in the down- 
town section, about sixteen blocks from the Temple. I 
felt sure that such a building, in a difficult city for 
church work as Baltimore, could not be more than a 
fourth or half full in spite of all the advertising done 
by the committee. On the Sunday evening set for the 
services I purposely delayed going so as to get there 
right on time, lest I be discouraged bj^ the small 
audience after all the expectations and efforts of the 
committee. 

When I got to the street leading to the Hippo- 
drome, however, it was so crowded with people on the 
sidewalk and in the street, I thought there was a fire 
in the block, which would of course mean calling off 
the theater meeting. Then I was met by some of my 
people informing me amid a mingling of enthusiasm 
and indignation that the doors of the Hippodrome 
had been closed for some time, some saying for half an 
hour, others saying for fifteen minutes. Anyhow, or- 
ders had been given by the police that no one else 
be allowed to enter the building. Surely the commit- 
tee had indeed achieved a remarkable success in its 
plans and work. Without suspecting for a moment 
that I would have any difficulty in being admitted, I 
attempted to enter, informing the doorkeeper that I 
was the preacher for the meeting inside, but he bluntly 
refused me admittance. I produced my Bible as testi- 
monj^ at which he waved me off; then handing him 
my card, he looked first at it, then at me and said, * ' I 
have orders that no one else is to enter this building 
and you can't go in," closing the door fast. In all 



THE CHRISTIAN TEMPLE 111 

this time fifteen minutes had been consumed and I 
was still on the outside with several hundred people 
having a good deal of fun at my expense. Then I 
v/ent to the stage entrance on the alley side of the 
building where another crowd was. In the scuffle at 
the door, one of the men from the inside identified me 
to the doorkeeper, who with considerable doubt al- 
lowed me to pass in. The crowd was in a good humor, 
not knowing anything of my difficulties to get in. A 
chorus of two hundred voices had been leading the 
singing, having sung half a dozen hymns. I read 
the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew and prayed. A 
v/ell known Roman Catholic soloist sang, and I spoke 
on ' ' War and Prophecy. ' ' About ten thousand tracts 
bearing on Christian unity and on the scourge of 
war were distributed. An after meeting was held, to 
which most of the audience remained. There were 
not many decisions for Christ in the meeting, but I 
heard afterwards of several churches through the city 
receiving members as the direct result of the meet- 
ing. It served the purpose in calling attention to city 
wide evangelization, reminding us that it is now as 
Jesus said it was when He was on earth, ' ' The harvest 
indeed is plenteous, hut the laborers are few. Pray 
ye therefore the Lord of the liar vest, that He send 
forth laborers into His harvest." It proved to be a 
wise venture. The next meeting brought more visible 
results. It opened up the possibilities of the evan- 
gelistic side of our work. A long and serious illness 
laid me low for the whole of the next winter, cutting 
short our plans for theater meetings, but the start had 
proved its practicability. 



112 WORKING WITH GOD 

It was the impelling force of the commission of 
Jesus that led us to emphasize lay preaching and in 
these twenty-five years more than a dozen men among 
us have been enrolled as lay preachers, most of these 
being still active. Some have taken the Bible course 
in the School of Seminary House, of which I shall 
speak in another chapter; others have started out 
without this preparation; all have done good service. 
Some of these preach occasionally, some regularly, 
rendering service in the city and in the surrounding 
country, preaching for the branch churches, in 
churches of other communions and occasionally for 
the Temple. Two have been regular ministers of 
branch churches for some years and of these I will 
speak in the chapter dealing with the branch 
churches. It is very doubtful if the department of 
our branch church work could have been established 
without lay preaching. These men are usually ready 
to go on short notice to these pulpits and they speak 
with acceptability. In confirmation of this custom 
in the Temple work I take the liberty of publishing 
here a private letter from Sir Robert W. Perks, Lon- 
don, written me on the occasion of the twenty-fifth 
anniversary of my ministry in Baltimore. 

"October 15, 1916. 
11, Kensington Palace Gardens 
London, W. 
*'My dear Dr. Ainslie: 

' ' I have read with the greatest interest the record 
of your work in Baltimore. As I read it I recalled 
John Wesley 's famous saying, written on his tablet in 
Westminster Abbey, 'What liatJi God wroicgJit!' 



THE CHRISTIAN TEMPLE 113 

Your methods are much like those of the early Meth- 
odists. They made a start 'somehow;' and they 
prayed ; and as one reads the lives of the early Method- 
ist preachers, one wonders whether in these days we 
have among us such men of faith; invineibles they 
were, fighting all along the line for their eternal 
leader. 

**I have often wondered as I have moved in and 
out among your American churches why you don't 
make more use of the lay preachers. Here the three 
Methodist Churches (would there were only one) have 
close on to 50,000 lay voluntary, unpaid preachers. 
What a mighty power for good such a band of men 
would be in the United States ! 

' ' God grant you and your people His richest 
blessing. 

''Yours faithfully, 

"R. W. Perks." 

In connection with this letter from Sir Robert, I 
recall that John Wesley said, "Give me one hundred 
pi'eachers who fear nothing but sin and desire noth- 
ing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be 
clergymen or laymen ; such alone will shake the gates 
of hell and set up the kingdom of heaven on earth." 
This can come only by prayer. 

An important part of church work is advertising. 
I have never been interested in odd and claptrap ad- 
vertising. It cheapens religion. Our funds have al- 
ways been so limited that we could not spend any- 
thing like the sum of money that we wanted to or 
perhaps that we ought to have spent in publicity. 
The churches generally are very derelict in this. Sane 
advertising is profitable. We have used finger cards, 
handbills, doorknob cards, window-cards, postal 



114 WORKING WITH GOD 

cards, advertising modestly in the religious colmnns of 
the press, occasionally in the amusement columns, and 
by large boards on the front of the church, such as 
those used at theater entrances, and best of all, the 
press of the city has always been very liberal in giv- 
ing space to news items, sermon extracts and any in- 
cident that deserved a write-up. That which we have 
sought to advertise has been the Grospel — ^not frivol- 
ous themes, nor uncertain subjects nor elaborate musi- 
cal programmes. The multitudes are burdened far 
more than we think. Sometimes back of their laugh- 
ter is the choking sob of a broken heart. They will 
be entertained by semi-religious sermons and will feed 
on them for a time. Sometimes in our poor under- 
standing of human needs we may think that the 
people want this. They do not. They could go else- 
where for it and get it far better than the pulpit 
could give it. People want the Gospel. Nothing so 
helps, comforts and holds people as plain biblical 
preaching, dealing with the Gospel of Jesus Christ 
presented in as simple language as the minister can 
command and practiced as heroically by him as he 
knows how. Along with this is the proper reception 
given people as they enter the building for worship. 
One of the largest assets in the work of the Temple 
has been the reception accorded the public by the 
chairman of the board of ushers. 

In the Disciples' desire to go back to the beliefs 
and practices of the Church in the New Testament 
times, the government in their local churches is some- 
what a combination of Presbyterian, Baptist and Con- 
gregational ideals — not fully any one of these, but 



THE CHRISTIAN TEMPLE 115 

sometimes shading off towards some one of these in 
various sections of the country. I do not regard, 
however, the government of the Church as a matter of 
vital Christianity. The New Testament precedent ap- 
pears to have been the appointment of elders or 
bishops to oversee the work and deacons to serve as 
they were needed, especially in the benevolences of 
the Church. These positions evidently did not have 
severe boundaries, for Philip, who was appointed a 
deacon with special instructions to look after the 
poor, as recorded in the sixth chapter of the Acts, 
did the work of an evangelist, as recorded in the 
eighth chapter. That which is of first importance is 
that the principles of order in the government of the 
Church be maintained. This evidently includes the 
ideals of democracy, which carries with it the freedom 
of accommodation to local conditions. I believe with 
John Owen, who said, ' ' Wherever there is a man or a 
body of men, who are united to Christ by a living 
faith and are keeping His commandments, he or they 
are in communion with the Church of God. ' ' 

The uppermost thing in the official affairs of a 
local church is the spirit of the men. In the choice 
of the first officials, in the Jerusalem church, they are 
described as "full of tJie Spirit and of wisdom.' ' I 
have taken pains in cultivating the monthly meetings 
of the officers of the Temple so that these meetings 
might remain in the minds of all the members of the 
church as the place of prayer and counsel, just as I 
would have them think that all are remembered in the 
daily private devotions of the minister. I have not 
always succeeded in making these meetings ideal and 



116 WORKING" ^^TH GOD 

tliey have not always appealed to the men that have 
been selected for these positions. Like all delicate 
problems it has taken time for development. The 
meeting opens with the roll call, then Scripture read- 
ing and prayer, followed by the reading of the min- 
utes of the last meeting, then the report of the finan- 
cial secretary, which includes the receipts of all 
moneys handled by the treasurer during the last 
month, then the reports of the standing committees, 
the report of the trustees (which is usually very brief, 
all the financial affairs being conducted by the trustees 
and apart from this meeting, thereby largely remov- 
ing petty financial discussions from the meeting) , then 
the introduction of new business, followed by the min- 
ister 's remarks and recommendations, closing with a 
brief message on prayer and a circle of prayer, in 
which sometimes as many as a dozen take part, each 
one praying having been given some special interest 
to pray for, such as the Sunday-school of the church, 
the missionary societies, the branch churches, the sick 
of the chui'ch, international peace. Christian unity, 
and so forth. Occasionally some minister or layman 
of some church that has made an attractive record of 
some kind is invited to address the meeting, so that 
we may know how others are working at the same 
problems that we are. 

The work of the Temple centers around the usual 
organizations of an active church, including the Sun- 
day-school, Endeavor Societies — Juniors, Intermedi- 
ates, Young People's and Seniors — several missionary 
societies. Brotherhood for the men, and Guild for the 
women, which is not a money-making organization, 



THE CHRISTIAN TEMPLE 117 

having dues of only ten cents a month. They look 
after the eommunion vessels and linen, baptismal gar- 
ments, visit the sick and cooperate in other social 
necessities. Then there are the Orphanage Society 
and several clubs for recreation. But the work has 
not gone without its daily burdens — men, women and 
children, who come in the church apparently as sin- 
cere in their decision for Christ as the most faithful, 
manifest ability, flourish for a time and then wither 
into coldness and indifference. I have never been dis- 
turbed by persons asking for their letters to join other 
churches. If I have the slightest intimation that the 
atmosphere of the Temple is not congenial to them, 
I would be untrue to my ministry if I would not pre- 
fer them to go where they can grow most and serve 
best, for my first desire is that Christ may be formed 
in His strength and beauty in the lives of all those 
who have come unto Him. If it is a question of dis- 
satisfaction over some petty affair in the church, I 
have given little time to nursing people's tastes and 
prejudices. I try to give these over to God and keep 
at my task irrespective of consequences. 

I have been grieved, however, because of persons, 
perhaps whose confessions I received, perhaps whom I 
baptized into Christ and perhaps to whom I gave 
their first communion and to whom I have preached 
the word of life — to see these gradually forgetting 
their covenant with God, growing indifferent to the 
things of Christ and finally dropping out altogether, 
except an occasional visit to the church. This is a 
burden from which I have never been able to escape, 
nor do I wish to escape from it, for it is a part of the 



118 WORKING WITH GOD 

ministry of Christ. Some sin has done this — sin of 
omission or commission. There can be no other ex- 
planation. Excuses are given. Perhaps God only 
knows the real truth of the matter, for frequently 
people do not tell the truth in these matters. Un- 
truth is a part of the coiled sin. Sometimes I have 
gone directly to the person, sometimes I have worked 
through others, sometimes I have waited alone in 
silent prayer without making any other effort, some- 
times I have sought to approach the person with all 
the kindness that I could command through some in- 
direct pulpit utterances, sometimes I have indirectly 
mentioned it in public prayer, taking the person right 
up to the Throne of Grace — every way possible to ac- 
complish the end of reestablishing their former cove- 
nant relations with God. When I sometimes go 
through the Temple auditorium alone, somehow I 
cannot get away from observing the worn carpet on 
the pulpit platform, just back of the desk, and I find 
myself asking, Oh, that I had a place so marked by 
my knees in prayer for my people, as I have marked 
this by my feet in preaching to them! Would they 
have been more faithful to the service of Christ with- 
out the loss of none ? What a responsibility ! I rarely 
ever look out over an audience to whom I am to speak, 
but the thought of the responsibility alarms me, so 
that after more than twenty-five years of preaching 
I rarely rise for my sermon without some degree of 
nervousness. I cannot now, but I will see in the day 
of Christ whether I have sown in faithfulness the 
handfuls of His grain in the fallowed heart-fields 
about me. 



THE CHRISTIAN TEMPLE 119 

A minister came to my office on one occasion to 
talk over the problems of his chnrch. It was a long, 
vexing story that touched me very much. When he 
came to the close, he apologized, saying, ^'I know I 
ought not to come to you with all this, for your work 
has always gone so smoothly that all I have told you 
must be very foreign to you as a part of a minister's 
life, but somehow I have had more than my share and 
I wanted to talk with somebody who would be pa- 
tient in listening to me, for my heart is almost 
broken.'' I stopped him and said, '^Ah, my friend, 
you don't know. My heart has ached in similar ex- 
periences as deeply as yours is aching now. This is a 
part of the ministry. I have had every experience 
that you have had, except I am inclined to think that 
mine have been more severe. I have gotten letters 
like those you have read me. I have had as severe 
things said to me and about me as you tell me you 
have had said to you and about you. I have had fre- 
quent occasions in my Baltimore ministry where I 
could have made a big fuss. When my work has 
been at low tide I have had my resignation written as 
you have yours, and there is sometimes a satisfac- 
tion in a minister 's writing out his resignation even if 
he never makes any further use of it. But I de- 
stroyed all the ugly letters — I haven't one; I tore up 
my resignation and nobody ever knew that I had 
written it; I never asked anybody to apologize for 
what they had said about me or to me; and I tried 
to move to my task with humble indifference to all 
consequences as I thought Timothy would have done, 
when Paul wrote him, ^Suffer JiardsJiip wifh me, as 



120 WORKING WITH GOD 

a good soldier of CJirist Jesus.' Then I was ashamed 
that I thought in the midst of the disturbance the 
things I did think; now I am happy that I suffered 
hardship, but I would not have been had I done 
otherwise. ' ' 

Through these years frequent calls came to me for 
outside work, such as popular lectures, college ad- 
dresses, evangelistic meetings and all that kind of 
wander-lust so common in the life of a minister. Dur- 
ing my ministry at the Third Church I yielded for a 
short period to the requests for popular lectures, 
purchasing a stereopticon and a supply of slides. My 
pictures were beautiful, whatever the accompanying 
lectures were. I discovered, however, that my lec- 
tures were interfering with my ministry of preaching. 
There are men who are well adapted to the lecture 
platform, far better than I ever could be, and they 
are doing a great and good work there, for that has 
become as distinct a field of service as that of the 
educator in the classroom. I think occasionally a 
minister may lecture, but not too often, lest his min- 
istry be hurt by it, as the love of praise, of pleasure 
or of good eating has ruined the ministry of some 
men. The Church cannot be sustained unless the 
minister finds this his chief field of labor. Besides, I 
do not believe that I am in error when I say that the 
work a minister does in his own church is far more 
important than any work done outside. He must go 
away sometimes. I find that very helpful. To give a 
course of lectures in a college or hold an evangelistic 
meeting in some other church may prove refreshing 
to him. It does to me, but this cannot be done too 




A GROUP OF MINISTERS WITO WEXT OUT FROM THIS WORK 
IN THE TWENTY-FI\E YEARS 

(1) H. G. Connelly, minister at New Alhanv, Ind. (2) C. S. Killers, 
minister at Calvary Church, Baltimore. (3) J. Albert Hall, minister at 
Plymouth, Pa. (4) Howard W. King, minister at Seventh Church, Bal- 
timore. (5) O. C. Barnes, minister at Rockville, Md. (6) Leslie L. 
Bowers, minister at Washington, D. C. (7) Harry B. Schultheis, min- 
ister at Buffalo, N. Y. 



THE CHRISTIAN TEMPLE 121 

often. It has always been a regret that I could not 
go frequently into other churches with the message 
of evangelism. But there is a stern limit to all this. 
Sometimes it is difficult to find how far one can go, 
but the building up of a local church, with all its 
auxiliary interests, is a field big enough for any man. 
In these twenty-five years mine has grown too big. I 
have often sighed for the smaller field where I could 
touch more closely the lives of all the people and 
grapple more directly with individual problems which 
a larger ministry necessarily denies the minister. 

The longer my ministry the more need I find for 
periods of withdrawing for meditation and study. 
This is not so much a choice, but a necessity. I have 
found for myself that any other course leads to lean- 
ness of soul. The deepest regret in my ministry of 
these twenty-five years is that I did not find more 
time for meditation, prayer and study of the Word. 
I lived far too public for my own spiritual life. It 
was hard to withdraw when the calls for service were 
so urgent. While my work has exceeded my expecta- 
tions, my ideals of spiritual living in myself have not 
attained to those standards of the Scriptures so 
precious to all who believe. This has been largely due 
to my yielding to circumstances, which I ought to have 
mastered rather than they having mastered me. But 
there is a joy in my heart that I have been permitted 
to serve as well as to see some of the fruits of my 
labors in working with God. 



The Trouble with the Glass 



As I walked down the street one afternoon 
in the bright sunshine, a small boy was enjoy- 
ing himself by catching the sun's rays in a small 
mirror, and throwing its blaze of light around so 
as to fairly blind those on the street. Another 
little boy, supposing that this reflection was 
wrought by an ordinary piece of glass, tried to 
catch the sun's rays, but with no success. His 
playmatea told him that his glass was all right 
and he labored diligently, but there was no re- 
flection. 

There was a splendid picture of human life. 
The difficulty in our failures is not with God, 
any more than the difficulty in the sun's reflec- 
tion was with the sun. The difficulty is always 
down here. The sun is all right, God is all right. 
But the heart must be like the polished mirror, 
or it cannot reflect the virtues of God. To say 
*'I believe" is not sufficient. I must do, before 
God and those around me will accept my profes- 
sion. Nothing short of a life in Christ can give 
the right background to the human heart. — In 
The Sunday School Times. 



122 



VII 
The Branch Churches 



I have never been able to accommodate myself to 
the humdrum life of a church that merely keeps up its 
current expenses and contributes a little something 
to missions. For a quarter of a century the students 
of the College of the Bible in Lexington spent a good 
part of Sunday afternoons in a prayer-meeting, which 
was very good ; but a dozen of us got together and de- 
cided that we could spend our Sunday afternoons bet- 
ter by starting a Sunday-school. At first it was 
against the judgment of the faculty, but finally we 
secured their consent. Out of those labors the founda- 
tion was laid of what later became a prosperous 
church. During my temporary stay at Newport 
News the building of the First Christian Church was 
erected and a branch church was started. So in com- 
ing to Baltimore the planting of branch churches was 
a very definite part of the programme, although I 
never mentioned this in the early part of my min- 
istry because for a time we had all we could do at the 
Third Church to keep it going. 

In 1898 I was in Europe, when it occurred to me 
that that year, being the tenth anniversary of the 
founding of the Third Church, there could be no bet- 
ter celebration than beginning to plan for a branch 
church. I hurried back to America so as to utilize 

123 



124 WORKING WITH GOD 

whatever sentiment there might be clustering around 
the very day of the anniversary. It was in midsum- 
mer and intensely hot. Not very many people were 
at church on that first Sunday morning in July. 
Some said, ''We haven't paid the debt on the Third 
Church: how can we start another church?" Others 
said, "We are not holding what we have: hadn't we 
better look after our own church first?" And there 
were many other comments and questions of like char- 
acter, which convinced me that all the sentiment of 
the celebration of the tenth anniversary of the Third 
Church must have been with me when I was in Europe. 
Now it was a problem of the most tactful method by 
which to proceed without friction and this method was 
found. 

At the afternoon meeting which I had called for 
the purpose of forming some kind of organization, 
there were less than a dozen present. I had gotten 
quite accustomed to discouragements in church affairs 
by this time and my courage was rarely ever off picket 
duty. I opened the meeting and talked as fully over 
the plans as though the house were full of people. 
At the evening service I announced that an organiza- 
tion for starting a branch church had been launched 
and indeed it had, although not enough members had 
been secured to make the full quota of officers. Num- 
bers may help in the consummation of a plan, but the 
lack of numbers rarely ever hinders if there are a few 
who will give themselves unreservedly to the project. 
We had those few. There was no special hostility 
against the move, but rather indifference, so the plant- 



THE BRANCH CHURCHES 125 

ing of the first branch church became a matter of per- 
sonal concern to only a few. 

There are a large number of churches in Balti- 
more. If all the people in the city were to plan to 
go to church on any Sunday, however, not a third 
of the population could be accommodated, besides 
nothing like half of the city is enrolled in the mem- 
bership of the churches and the Sunday-schools. Of 
the Disciples' witness in the city besides the Third 
Church, there was only one other white church — Har- 
lem Avenue Church — and a small struggling colored 
church. The history of the Harlem Avenue Church 
reaches back through many decades, having been a 
real factor in the religious life of the city. It has been 
served by a succession of most worthy ministers. At 
the time of starting our first branch church B. A. 
Abbott was there and his fine personality will always 
cause him to be most kindly remembered. He 
was one of the regular contributing editors of TJie 
Christian Tribune. H. C. Armstrong is there now 
as I close this twenty-five years' story and no 
one would question his place as one of the best preach- 
ers in the city. He helps in Seminary House, teach- 
ing one of the Bible classes there to the great profit 
of the students. 

In the fall of 1898, those persons, members of the 
Third Church, who were living in the northern section 
of the city, four or five miles away, and others who 
were living near the Third Church but were interested 
in this programme — ^in all about twenty-odd — started 
the Twenty-fifth Street Church. For a year or more 
the meetings were held in a hall on St. Paul Street 



126 WORKING WITH GOD 

and I preached there every Sunday afternoon at four 
o'clock, following the session of the Sunday-school at 
three o 'clock. Then we started the building. I called 
at a certain gentleman's office — this gentleman was 
not a member of our church — where I thought I might 
get twenty-five dollars, and after hearing the story 
of the work, he gave five hundred dollars. Next Sun- 
day at the Third Church I made the call from the pul- 
pit, not asking for money during the services, and 
after the benediction I got more than five hundred 
dollars in cash and pledges. After considerable 
trouble a lot was secured by a lease and the building 
of a frame chapel was started. 

Just before that a preacher in one of the Northern 
cities got into some trouble, so that he was without a 
pastorate. I did not know him personally, but he 
wrote me and I volunteered to go to his rescue. After 
much effort in fighting off his accusers, whose charges 
had to do solely with factious management of church 
affairs, I secured him a pastorate in one of the rural 
districts. Then he insisted that I should take his son 
as my assistant. We were not in a position at the 
Third Church to do this, however, but on his willing- 
ness to come for a very small compensation, we un- 
dertook it. He was a bright young man and I liked 
him. Later we confined his work largely to the 
Twenty-fifth Street Church. Then rumors reached us 
that things were not going right and I sent for the 
young man. At first he denied that there was any 
ground for these rumors, reminding me what I had 
done for his father; but, when pushed more closely 
he acknowledged that these conditions did exist and 



THE BRANCH CHURCHES 127 

he advised me to be careful lest I get more on my 
hands than I wanted. 

Just before this, they had asked that the Third 
Church would deed them the lot, upon which was a 
ground rent, and we did this, inasmuch as the build- 
ing was soon to go up on it, after which we would 
look to them to conduct the affairs of the church there. 
Then a while after they asked that I would sign all 
the contracts for the building and furnishings. Never 
thinking for a moment at that time that any trouble 
would come up I did this. In this conversation the 
young man reminded me that they had the deed to the 
lot and the debts were in my name, indicating more 
deeply laid plans than we had thought. It appeared 
to be a legal matter, so I went at once to advise with 
a lawyer. He informed me that they had me and 
nothing could be done, and it looked so legally, but not 
morally. 

That evening was prayer-meeting at the Twenty- 
fifth Street Church, the building then to be completed 
in a few days. I sat in the meeting and was not 
called on, but at the close I stated that I had some- 
thing to say. Going to the front I informed them of 
the things I had heard, and since I had signed the 
papers for the building and the furnishings, these 
things were mine and those who were willing to work 
in harmony we were glad to have to continue; the 
others would either have to come into harmonious co- 
operation or seek fellowship elsewhere. The turn was 
more sudden than they expected, or than I had, for 
that matter. Perhaps their prayers helped me to see 
the way out of the difficulty, for the plan occurred to 



128 WORKING WITH GOD 

me while they were praying. But it saved that work, 
for it was the judgment of those who knew the work 
that that group could never have established a church, 
as their after history showed. Had they been left 
alone they would have failed sooner or later, making 
that work an eyesore in the city. The swifter method 
is not always the best, but in this instance it was. 

This young man withdrew, taking with him thirty 
of the thirty-two members. Immediately an appeal 
was made to the Third Church for thirty members to 
take the place of these and more than this number 
volunteered, thereby keeping in force the charter, and 
the next day the property was deeded back to the 
Third Church. I have never known a finer instance 
of fidelity on the part of those who volunteered for 
that service. They remained there until new members 
came in to take their places. They never discussed 
the difficulty in the church building or on the cars 
and many of them never missed a service, although 
living four and five miles away, being present at both 
services on Sunday and on Wednesday evenings. 
Being among our most active forces at the Third 
Church, the withdrawal of these members crippled 
both the work and the finances very much. It was an 
emergency and they met it with rare heroism. At the 
same time the difficulty brought additional financial 
burdens on the Third Church in having to pay the 
floating debt on Twenty-fifth Street Church. It was 
regretted very much that this condition necessarily 
brought to a close the services of C. C. Jones as as- 
sistant at the Third Church which he had accepted 



THE BRANCH CHURCHES 129 

only a few months before and whose faithfulness en- 
deared him very much to the people. 

The young man in the Twenty-fifth Street work 
and his followers started a rival work that annoyed 
us for a time, but it soon went to pieces. Finding they 
could not check the advance of our work by rivalry, 
he got considerable space from time to time in a news- 
paper that has since failed, the better papers refusing 
him any notice at all on the matter ; then he entered 
suit against me for his salary, which I had already in- 
formed him stopped on the day that the Third Church 
took charge of the work. The suit amounted to noth- 
ing other than the unpleasant notoriety connected 
with it, for it never came to trial. 

The issue in this difficulty was twofold, first, re- 
garding the church and, second, regarding myself. I 
knew very well that if we failed in this first attempt 
to start a branch church, it would be very difficult, if 
not impossible, to start another, and certainly not in 
that section of the city. So every possible effort was 
put forth for the saving of this new work for its own 
sake as well as for the effect on the future programme 
of the Third Church. The issue regarding myself was 
very personal. I had helped this young man's fa- 
ther in the face of hostility, being warned that just 
such a thing as did happen would happen. I had 
taken the young man into our work as much to help 
him as for the help that he would give us. The nat- 
ural result was to make me sour and resentful in con- 
sequence of the turn of affairs. But I had to save 
my heart at all cost, for myself as well as for my 
work, for I knew that the Lord could not use a sour 



130 WORKING \^nTH GOD 

or resentful heart. At this time I discovered the 
thirty-seventh Psalm.* I got to memory the first nine 
verses and for months I repeated them dozens of times 
a day to my own heart, saying them over and over to 
myself. J. Z. Tyler, who had made an eventful min- 
istry in Cleveland, was in the city for a short time. 
He asked about the difficulty and then said, ''I was 
never treated as badly as that. You have an oppor- 
tunity that I never had. ' ' I saw in a moment a new 
meaning in opportunity that I had never seen be- 
fore — opportunity to forgive. It helped me to the 
victory so that not only was there no feeling in my 
heart against the young man, but I was glad that I 
had had the experience, as bitter as it was for a time. 
Some years after he got in further trouble in another 
city. His accusers came to Baltimore on two occasions 
to see me, expecting to get evidence against him ; but 
I was able not only to refuse any information, but to 
put a kinder construction on the things they had 
heard, reminding them of our common weakness and 
God's waiting on us for a kinder interpretation of 



^"Fret not thyself because of evil-doers, 
Neither be thou envious against them that work unrighteousness. 
For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, 
And wither as the green herb. 
Trust in Jehovah, and do good; 
Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. 
Delight thyself also in Jehovah; 
And He will give thee the desires of thy heart. 
Commit thy way unto Jehovah; 
Trust also in Him, and He will bring it to pass. 
And He will make thy righteousness go forth as the light. 
And thy justice as the noonday. 
Rest in Jelwvah, and wait patiently for Him; 
Fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, 
Because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass. 
Cease from anger, and forsake wrath: 
Fret not thyself, it tendeth only to evil-doing. 
For evil-doers shall be cut off; 
But those that wait for Jehovah, they shall inherit the land. 

—Psalm 37:1-9. 



THE BRANCH CHURCHES 131 

human conduct. Besides this benefit to me person- 
ally, this difficulty revealed the possibility of the 
Third Church. A people who could do what they did 
could be entrusted with a greater task. It was the 
kind of a service that afterwards made the Christian 
Temple possible and helped to give me confidence to 
undertake that work. What looked so discouraging 
and unfortunate for a time was used of God for 
greater blessings than at that time any of us dreamed. 

It soon became an established policy to encourage 
our members to go to the help of the weaker churches, 
regarding such service as a definite part of our home 
missionary programme. Several years after, the 
Twenty-fifth Street Church needed a faithful man in 
its affairs. Flournoy Payne, the minister, presented 
the matter to our official board, when the clerk of the 
church, and one of our most valuable men, took me 
aside after the meeting and said, ''Inasmuch as I am 
renting my house, I could rent as easily in that sec- 
tion of the city as any other. If it is all right for me 
to go, I am willing to go." In less than thirty days 
he had moved and has been one of the most faithful 
members in that work, being an official of the church 
and a teacher in the Sunday-school. Later when O. 
G. White was there as minister, he made a similar ap- 
peal, and a man whom we had just selected for the 
eldership because of his unusual fitness for that place, 
was asked for by Twenty-fifth Street Church. We 
withdrew our choice and the next Sunday letters were 
granted to this man and his wife for service in the 
w^eaker field. 

The Twenty-fifth Street Church advanced and was 



132 WORKING WITH GOD 

getting on its feet when another trouble occurred, 
which was more hurtful than the former trouble, be- 
cause the church by this time had gotten a consider- 
able membership. They wanted to make some altera- 
tions in their building. At that time we were in the 
Temple and the officers of the Temple did not think 
the plan advisable or economical. The Twenty-fifth 
Street Church representatives asked then that we 
deed them the property and they would assume all re- 
sponsibility. Against our judgment the property was 
deeded to them ; expensive alterations to the building 
were made and a big disturbance arose, when the 
preacher resigned and a large number of members 
withdrew, leaving a small but a faithful group, how- 
ever, struggling nobly at the task. William New- 
comer came to their rescue with a loan through the 
Church Extension Society of the Disciples. All these 
storms have now passed away into forgetfulness and 
the sky over the Twenty-fifth Street Church is clear 
and wide. It has one of the best fields of any church 
in the city, being only a few blocks from the grounds 
of Johns Hopkins University and Goucher College 
and surrounded by a vast territorj^ of residences. L. 
B. Haskins, who did faithful service there, was suc- 
ceeded by Edward B. Bagby — the friend of my earlier 
3^ears — whose unusual ministry in Washington made 
us glad to have him here, if only for a short time. He 
brought many valuable people into that work and 
strengthened it generally. Being called back to 
Washington to lead the forces there in the planting 
of a new church in a fine residential section of that 
city, he resigned and B. H. Melton succeeded him. 



THE BRANCH CHURCHES 133 

taking at once the leadership of a new building enter- 
prise. He has led this with remarkable skill, so that 
by the time this book comes from the press Twenty- 
fifth Street Church will be housed in one of the most 
attractive buildings in the city at a cost of about fifty 
thousand dollars, all of which is a joy, because it is 
the fulfilment of God's promises and the answer to 
the praj^ers of many. 

It might be thought that inasmuch as we had so 
much trouble in planting our first branch church, we 
would not attempt a second for some time, but such 
was not the case. Eight in the midst of our trouble 
with our first branch church, we opened a branch 
work in the southern section of the city, for our hearts 
were fixed on a city wide programme. Through the 
leader of our work there I learned that an Episcopal 
physician and builder was favorable to giving us a 
lot at a reduced price in a section he was developing 
in order to have a church in that immediate commu- 
nity. I called and agreed to take the lot, reminding 
him that we would appreciate it very much if he 
would loan us some money to aid in the building. 
After talking over the matter for a while, a loan of 
$3,000 was agreed upon. With this amount and what 
we could raise the Randall Street Church was built, 
just the first story, however, and this was of stone. It 
started off under most favorable circumstances and 
appeared to be prospering, when suddenly the 
preacher resigned, securing his successor before he 
left, and the two preachers got into a quarrel, which 
came very near being a law suit between them, when 
to save us from such a scandal, I took a hand in it. 



134 WORKING ^\^TH GOD 

seeking adjustment by arbitration. The hearing was 
held before the whole church, which had pretty well 
gone to ruin by this time. The suit was prevented 
by this open course, however, but here we were again 
in the midst of a wrecked church. From a member- 
ship of about two hundred, there were perhaps a dozen 
left and a debt of $7,200. Later several preachers 
tried to build it up, but the work went entirely to 
pieces, so that the doors were closed. I had signed in- 
dividually the papers for the building and furnish- 
ings, as in the case of Twenty-fifth Street Church. 
When the quarrel got in the newspapers, some of the 
creditors pushed me, but most of them were very pa- 
tient, especially on the circumstances being explained, 
the builders to whom we owed $1,000 going so far as 
to cut our indebtedness to them to $500. But with the 
floating indebtedness of Twenty-fifth Street Church, 
precipitated by their difficulty, on the Temple, we did 
not see how we could possibly meet at the same time 
the floating indebtedness of Randall Street Church, 
so to be honorable with our creditors we decided to 
sell the property, which would bring something in 
excess of the indebtedness. 

On the way home from the board meeting, one of 
the deacons of the Temple, J. N. Pickering, a lawyer 
and real estate dealer, said to me : " You really don 't 
want to sell it, do you?" To which I replied, ''No, 
I do not, but there is nothing else to do unless one of 
our laymen take it. Now since you have mentioned 
it suppose you go down there on Sunday and preach. ' ' 
He forthwith objected, never having taken a very ac- 
tive part in the public work of the church, but he 



J 



THE BRANCH CHURCHES 135 

finally consented to go. In the service one person 
made decision for Christ and he took that as God's 
call for him to take up that work. That was in Febru- 
ary, 1906. Since then he has preached there every 
Sunday, morning and evening, and conducted the 
Sunday-school in the afternoon and mid-week prayer- 
meeting on Wednesday evening. He has been or- 
dained as the elder of that church. Under his leader- 
ship a growing membership has been gathered to- 
gether, the debt has long ago been wiped out and they 
are now preparing to complete the building which 
will make it one of the best church buildings in that 
section of the city. Although Mr. Pickering is one of 
the busiest men to be found, attending to his legal 
and real estate business six days in the week, he 
preaches to good audiences on Sunday and has made 
a remarkable record. 

Having told at some length these two church dif- 
ficulties and their results, it might look as though 
they were alone in the city, but such was not the case. 
Four other communions — Eoman Catholics and three 
Protestant bodies — were involved in similar troubles 
in the same period. There may have been others, but 
only these received notice in the newspapers — a kind 
of ecclesiastical epidemic of mumps, chicken-pox and 
cholera variety. The germs appeared to have died out 
after that and my own work has not been troubled 
after that character to any serious extent since. Such 
conditions emphasize the worldliness of the church, of 
which I am deeply ashamed, for no Christians can get 
into a quarrel, whether Eoman Catholic or Protestant, 
but all the other Christians in the community have to 



136 WORKING WITH GOD 

bear the odium of the scandal in the eyes of the world, 
whether we want to or not. To say, ' ' That is not in 
my church" may satisfy the bigoted consciences of 
some Christians, but it will not satisfy the great un- 
believing world. These two difficulties, however, 
were so completely mastered by the reestablishing of 
the two churches that it strengthened our faith in 
prayer and in the Lord's leadership of this work so 
that we do not consider obstacles as we used to. 

When we left the Third Church building for the 
Temple, it was decided to retain it as a branch church 
and henceforth we will speak of it as Calhoun Street 
Church. This was an instance of remarkable liberality 
on the part of our people. I have never known of 
another case like it, although there may be. We left 
the building to be used by those in that neighborhood 
and without any money we started out to build a new 
church in another neighborhood. It was perhaps the 
largest offering made from a financial point of view 
in the establishing of any of our branch churches, for 
the sale of that property would have been a sub- 
stantial help in building the Temple. At first Calhoun 
Street Church was a great care. The larger part of 
the membership having gone to the Temple, it was like 
starting a church from the beginning attended with 
all the difficulties of a new work, and more. We have 
always maintained the principle of self-government 
in all our branch churches, leaving them to work out 
their own problems with no exercised leadership from 
the home church whatsoever, except in the midst of 
friction, or any kind of trouble. Then we take part. 
Since the deed to the property was held by us, there 



THE BRANCH CHURCHES 137 

was necessarily some responsibility regarding the 
conduct of work, and advancement of which had our 
keenest interest. 

We had grown up through the years to despise 
church quarrels, factions and bickerings above all 
other heresies; therefore this condition was always 
met instantly and positively. Things had not gone 
very well at Calhoun Street Church when two per- 
sons — husband and wife — came in, who caused con- 
siderable trouble. Some of the most valuable members 
called on us, expressing their determination to with- 
draw unless something was done, while many of the 
members appeared to be with these two persons in the 
difficulty. After investigating matters, the eldership 
of the Temple simply wrote these persons that their 
activities in the Calhoun Street Church were not agree- 
able to us because of the friction they had caused, 
neither would it be agreeable to us for them to attend 
any other of our branch churches, as we heard they 
intended to do if they left there, but we would take 
them at the Temple or, having consulted the officers of 
Harlem Avenue Church they would be given a home 
there; these churches being large they would not 
likely cause any trouble. They left immediately 
and after some time went to the latter church. 
At first man}^ of their friends resented our letter and 
talked of leaving the church, but they afterwards 
acknowledged that our firm course had saved the Cal- 
houn Street Church. No church can prosper amid 
factions and disturbing elements, especially small 
churches, and every effort is made to check such con- 
ditions as early as practicable. Calhoun Street 



138 WORKING WITH GOD 

Church has prospered. It has a good Sunday-school 
and its building is frequently full. F. H. Scott is 
rendering an acceptable ministry there and has so led 
the forces that they have become independent, having 
received the deed to their property. 

About this time a rather unusual proposition came 
to us regarding a church at Lansdowne, which is 
about six or seven miles from the city limits. Their 
work had become broken all to pieces through internal 
troubles of various kinds. They wanted the Temple 
to take the property, exercising absolute oversight. 
Instead, we took it over after the model of a receiver- 
ship, several of our laymen taking charge of the work 
until their debts were all paid and peace reigned in 
the church. It was then reorganized and turned back 
to them and there has been no trouble there since so 
far as we have heard. T. L. Scruggs ministers there. 

In 1907 two men from Wilhelm Park, a section in 
the extreme western part of the city, called to see us, 
saying there were Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, 
Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans and Baptists in 
the park, but not enough of any one of these to build 
a church, and inasmuch as the Christian Temple stood 
for the union of all Christians, they wished to know 
if we would come there and establish a church. It 
was an unusual request, but certainly a very practi- 
cal one. We visited them, establishing weekly prayer- 
meetings under leaders from the Temple and later a 
Sunday-school was established. Then a Presbyterian 
capitalist presented us with two lots and a substantial 
contribution towards a building. It was erected in 
1909 and is out of debt. The minister of this work is 




SOME OF THE BRANCH CHURCTTKS 

(1) Randall Street— Second P.nnch Church. (2) Wilhelm Park- 
Fifth Branch Church. (3) English Consul— Sixth Branch Church. (4) 
Seventh^ — Seventh Branch Church. (3) Calvary — Eighth Branch Church. 



THE BRANCH CHURCHES 139 

one of our laymen, ordained to the eldership there, W. 
P. George, who holds a position in the office of the 
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and diligently looks 
after the Wilhelm Park Church on Sundays and 
Wednesday evenings, with satisfactory results. It 
has a Sunday-school that so overcrowds the building 
and likewise audiences at the other services, that they 
are now preparing to erect a building more than twice 
the present size. 

English Consul is a growing settlement south of the 
city, where once was the home of the British Consul. 
The owner of this property, whose wife is a member 
of the Temple, gave us two lots there for a church. A 
prayer-meeting and Sunday-school were started, 
which soon called for a building. This was formally 
opened without debt in the spring of 1916. Several 
of our laymen have faithfully served there, having 
preaching every Sunday. 

In the fall of 1913 a church property on the 
upper end of Fulton Avenue, near Druid Hill Park, 
was to be sold because the church had gone to pieces 
largely through internal troubles. Fifteen years be- 
fore it had been started at a cost of $2,483 for the lot 
and $1,500 for the building. A mortgage of $3,000 
was put on the property then, which was still on it. 
Less than half a dozen persons claimed membership 
there. It is rarely ever wise to take up such a propo- 
sition. It was offered to us, however. With some 
hesitation we agreed to take it for the amount of the 
mortgage. A call was made for volunteers from the 
Temple. Some of our most active and efficient mem- 
bers responded, taking their letters and giving their 



140 WORKING WITH GOD 

time and money there, some of these living miles away. 
For a while the work was conducted by one of our 
laymen, several others assisting him, so that from the 
start there was preaching there every Sunday morn- 
ing and evening. The new organization took the name 
Seventh Church, since it was the seventh branch from 
the Temple, being reopened the first Sunday in 
January, 1914. Through the aid of the State Mis- 
sionary Society of the Disciples, whose help has been 
invaluable in most of our branch churches, Howard 
W. King, one of our own young men, who had been in 
the ministry for several years with many blessings on 
his labors, became minister there in 1915. The mem- 
bership has been increased to more than a hundred, 
the debt has been reduced and the outlook is hopeful. 

In 1916 Clifton S. Ehlers, another of our own 
young men who had been several years in the min- 
istry, became assistant minister at the Temple in con- 
junction with establishing a branch church on Reis- 
terstown Road, where quite a number of the Temple 
members live. He had supplied the pulpit at the 
Temple for some months on his return from Yale 
University, having endeared himself to our people 
in his faithful ministry. A lot has been secured 
and a building will be erected shortly, prayer- 
meetings having been conducted by Mr. Ehlers 
through the neighborhood for nearly a year, which 
was later followed by Sunday meetings in a theater 
in the neighborhood. The name of the new church is 
Calvary. 

In the opening of the Temple in 1905, we started 
a Chinese Sunday-school, which has had many ups 



THE BRANCH CHURCHES 141 

and downs, sometimes being well patronized and at 
other times in an uncertain condition. In September, 
1916, we undertook work among the colored people, 
which has grown with satisfaction. One of their own 
laymen preaches for them every Sunday. They have 
good audiences and are raising funds for a building, 
which we hope can be secured before long. I will 
speak of the colored people at greater length in 
another chapter. 

We made permanent shortly after entering the 
Temple the employment of Miss Dale in China as a 
distinct part of our missionary programme, this being 
done by the cooperation of the treasuries of the Sun- 
day-school and the church; likewise later H. J. Der- 
thick was employed for work among the immigrants 
in Indianapolis, Indiana, by the cooperation of the 
treasuries of the missionary societies and the church, 
the first being done through the Foreign Christian 
Missionary Society and the latter being done through 
the Christian Woman 's Board of Missions. The work 
and life of these two missionaries have been an in- 
spiration to us and we rejoice that we are counted 
worthy to have part in their support. 

Including our work in China through Miss Dale 
and among the immigrants through H. J. Derthick, 
there are ten branch stations from the work of the 
Christian Temple. Of the eight branch churches in 
the city, only two have debts on their buildings. All 
are life saving stations where fine groups of Chris- 
tians, extending into the hundreds, are ministering in 
a service that is giving enrichment to their own lives 
as well as to the other hundreds touched by them. 



142 WORKING WITH GOD 

Some of these would doubtless be in some of the 
strong churches and perhaps not in active service; 
others would not be in any service at all; hence we 
regard our branch churches as definite a part of our 
work as the Christian Temple itself. Our policy has 
been to give freely our members for service elsewhere 
and, in our own work, not to rival any other church, 
but to rival our own past records and to seek to at- 
tain to our ideals. We have sought to give to the 
Temple certain streets as the boundaries of our par- 
ish, leaving those of our own members who live near 
our branch churches to join them, and where there 
are groups and no branch churches and the members 
are not disposed to go into the churches of other com- 
munions, we expect to establish branch churches, 
either by the organization of all the churches of the 
Disciples in the city, which we prefer, or by the Tem- 
ple alone, only the Gospel must be proclaimed.* In- 
stead of these branch churches diminishing the 
strength of the Temple, this policy of unselfish en- 
largement has increased that strength. 

^' There is that scatter eth, and increaseth yet more; 
And there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it 
tendeth only to want." 



*In starting branch or mission churches, at first the property may 
be held by the church supporting it, but it is preferable to deed the 
property at the beginning, certainly later, and so long as it receives 
mission funds, to the City or State Missionary Society and to be held 
by that organization so long as that or any one of the national mis- 
sionary societies render assistance. Such a method maintains business 
integrity and saves frequent troubles which arise through the weak- 
ness of the congregational system. 



A Prayer 



O Thou God of help, while the helpless cry- 
to Thee, send me on Thy mission. My hands, 
my feet, my voice, my heart, my money — all are 
Thine. Curse me not as Thou didst Meroz, but 
let me learn from them the danger of idleness 
and indifference. Rather would I ask Thee to 
clothe Thyself with me as Thou didst Gideon. 
Use every part of me, for my life is naught un- 
less it be given to Thy service. To reach another 
Thou must reach through me; to love, to give, 
to be — all these things must work through hu- 
man channels, and I ask Thee to let me see Thy 
need of me, and I shall stand at the task. 
Though I may stand in the dark I will not care, 
so Thou art with me. Though I may suffer, 
Thou didst suffer long before me. I desire to 
be Thy servant in these times of sin, that I may 
take Thy light into some darkened chambers and 
there relight a broken altar in the name of Him 
who is the light of the world. Amen. — From 
Studies in the Old Testament. 



144 



VIII 
The Orphanage Society 



Modern Christianity has in its outward expression 
a good deal of selfishness, whatever may be its heart. 
To build a comfortable place for worship and social 
life without in some definite way tying itself up with 
some benevolent work, is surely missing the mark. 
Before the early disciples erected a church building 
they had established a system of benevolence. Be- 
fore they went out to evangelize Judaea and Samaria 
they appointed "seven men of good report" to look 
after the needy. It was as much a part of the life 
of the Church as their faith in Jesus as the Christ, 
the Son of the living God. Had early Christianity 
not been of that type it would have perished be- 
fore the wrath of Nero, Domitian or Diocletian. But 
because it was such it could not be defeated. Its 
song was the song of the brook and its music was like 
the music of the rustling of the corn. 

I believed all this at the beginning of my ministry, 
but my belief was not definite enough to function in 
practical service, although I was called to see this by 
an incident that occurred on my first Monday in Balti- 
more. It was getting an orphan boy in an orphanage. 
It was no little task. I was a stranger in the city, 
the boy was not born in the United States and his 
years exceeded the age limit for admission by nearly 

145 



146 WORKING WITH GOD 

a year, according to the rules of the institution, yet as 
I trudged with him from one official to another, his 
manly presence helped to win the day for him, and it 
was a day well won, for this boy is now the head of a 
Christian home and a useful member of the commu- 
nity, having served as the superintendent of the Tem- 
ple Sunday-school. But in after years I often thought 
whether I should not have started right then to culti- 
vate the idea of an orphanage in the programme of 
the Third Church. It might have been the very thing 
needed to have diverted their attention from the many 
difficulties that harassed me so constantly. Other 
cases of similar character, however, came up from 
time to time, but a definite idea for an orphanage 
did not come into the work until 1904. 

Some of the women of the church had been look- 
ing after an erstwhile Roman Catholic family that 
had fallen upon hard times. The burden could not be 
carried any longer, so the question arose as to plac- 
ing the children in an institution and I was called 
into the council. Orphanages are usually crowded; 
consequently securing the admission of even the most 
needy is frequently attended with difficulty. Some 
of us, however, thought that the time had come in 
our own work when we should assume some responsi- 
bility in the care of orphan children. A church has 
no right to a place in a community if it does not 
touch all the needs and interests of that community, 
else it becomes a social club of diminishing worth. 
There are too many burdens to be borne for a church 
to be contented to have only Sunday ser^dces, leaving 
the weary alone with their burdens. So after con- 



THE ORPHANAGE SOCIETY 147 

suiting over the conditions we decided to become re- 
sponsible for the care of five children, although event- 
ually only three were committed to us. In a few days 
homes had been secured for them, for while there are 
many homes that do not desire children and in some 
instances wickedly destroy them, there are scores of 
homes that do desire them and it is a work of grace 
to place an orphan in a home that hungers for the love 
of a child. 

The first to be taken away was a little girl of five 
years. A home just over the Maryland line in Vir- 
ginia had been secured and I was to take her to Wash- 
ington, where some member of the family would meet 
us. Early one winter morning when the streets were 
covered with snow, Genevieve was brought to my resi- 
dence. I took her in the dining-room, seating her at 
the table for breakfast, but she would not eat. The 
only answer to all my approaches of friendship was 
tears standing in the big gray eyes, telling me more 
clearly than words could convey that her child heart 
was conscious of some mysterious events transpiring 
in which she was the chief actor. Then I started for 
the street car two blocks away, but our feet had 
scarcely touched the pavement, taking her in the op- 
posite direction from whence she had come, when she 
broke forth in loud screaming. Some of the neigh- 
bors raised their windows, inquiring of me what was 
the trouble, but I had no time to answer questions 
then. I was puzzled to know how to check the grief 
of the little girl, for I knew that I could never go to 
"Washington in that fashion and I disliked to abandon 
the task, however new and difficult it might be. 



148 WORKING WITH GOD 

Bending down I asked her whether she would rather 
go back to her home or go with me to a nice home of 
friends and plenty. It was a great question to ask a 
child of five years, but I determined to let her decide 
it. She knew the past; she could only trust me for 
the future, although she had only known me for a 
few days. Suppressing her sobs and with both cheeks 
wet with tears, she paused to answer. Then she said : 
"I would rather go with you." 

As I turned I saw that we were opposite a candy 
store. I went in and purchased enough to fill her 
hands and pockets with an extra package or two be- 
sides and forthwith boarded the street car for the rail- 
road station. Soon we were on the train, passing 
rapidly by interesting sights, boys and girls sliding 
down the snow covered hills and sometimes wagon- 
loads of things for the farm or the store, and on 
everj^ side beautiful trees laden with snow and icicles 
flashing like crystals under the light of the cloudless 
sky. In less than an hour we were in the old Pennsyl- 
vania railroad station in Washington. It was then 
nearly ten o'clock and the family that had agreed to 
take her had written that some one of their house- 
hold would be there to meet us by a little after nine 
o'clock. So I felt quite happy on our safe arrival; 
but, on entering the station, I saw no one that I knew, 
nor did anyone appear to be looking for us. What 
should I do ? Could I have made a mistake regarding 
the day? I got out the letter and read it again. I 
had the day, hour and place correctly, but no one ap- 
peared to be there to meet us. I had entertained Gene- 
vieve on the train with some satisfaction to myself, 



THE ORPHANAGE SOCIETY 149 

but how much longer I could continue this enter- 
tainment I did not know. Hour after hour passed. 
In the meantime, all persons who came in the station 
and appeared to be looking for some one or took a 
seat, I immediately approached, but to no result. I 
took the station master into my problem and also the 
station matron, but neither could help me. Gene- 
vieve and I had taken lunch together in the station 
dining-room and she had eaten with considerable rel- 
ish, which pleased me very much. I felt that I had 
succeeded in keeping up her spirits, but mine now 
were somewhat wavering, for it was getting dark and 
the last train for Hurndon would leave at five o 'clock 
and it was fifteen minutes of the time. If no one ap- 
peared by that time I would have to take her back to 
Baltimore and perhaps would never get my hands on 
her again. 

Just then the station master called to me, intro- 
ducing me to a physician who lived in Hurndon. I 
told him my trouble and he offered to take her with 
him, with the understanding that in the event no one 
was at the station to meet her, he would take her to his 
home and adopt her as his child, for she had at once 
shown marked friendliness for him. He promised to 
write me that evening as soon as he reached home. 

I bade them good-bye and as I turned from the 
gate an aged woman with white hair was hurrying 
through to catch the train for Hurndon. Next morn- 
ing a long letter came from the family where Gene- 
vieve was to go, expressing their joy in her safe ar- 
rival at Hurndon and explaining that this aged wom- 
an, who was skilled in handling children, had been 



150 WORKING T\^TH GOD 

sent to meet us. I had seen her at the station when I 
arrived and I had observed that she remained seated 
there all day. In making my rounds of inquiry in 
the station she was the only person whom I had not 
asked. Observing her advanced years and apparent 
infirmity, it had not occurred to me that she had 
been sent to meet us. I was looking for the young 
couple who had agreed to take Genevieve, or some 
one about their age. The aged woman in turn was 
looking for an aged man with long white beard, 
carrying a little child in his arms. She had watched 
closely all day, having gone without lunch for fear 
we might come when she was out. With deep disap- 
pointment, she was taking the last train for home. At 
five o'clock I took the train back to Baltimore with 
much concern for the welfare of our little ward and 
at the same time with many perplexities attending my 
new experience. Genevieve, being adopted and edu- 
cated by this family, is now a worthy Christian young 
woman. 

The taking of these children not only opened a 
new department in our work, but so enlarged our 
concern for these orphans that they became the daily 
thought in our prayers. We did not have the means 
to purchase a building for an orphanage, but one 
home volunteered to put itself at our disposal to re- 
ceive any orphan children that might be brought to 
us, having the child to remain there until it was placed 
in a permanent home. Other homes followed in this 
beautiful ministry until we had four or five homes 
that were open any hour for the temporary reception 
of orphan children. This work soon got to be known 



THE ORPHANAGE SOCIETY 151 

and we have had more applications for children than 
we could supply, so that no child remains very long 
in the temporary home unless on account of sickness. 
Those from whom the children are taken are not able 
to give any money for the support of this work and 
those who receive the children are not asked for any- 
thing. As a rule no papers are signed either between 
the Temple Orphanage Society and those from whom 
the children are taken or between the Temple Orphan- 
age Society and those who receive the children. Some- 
times, however, papers of adoption are issued, but we 
do not want any person to retain a child if that per- 
son does not desire the child, and should we have 
any reason to take the child back we do not hesitate 
to do so. It is a covenant of confidence between all 
parties concerned. When that confidence is in any 
way impaired, the child becomes involved at once and 
we feel our responsibility in taking whatever action 
that may be necessary. 

A father called one day asking that our Society 
would take his three children — a girl and two boys, 
the younger being four years old. His wife had de- 
serted the home and nobody appeared to have known 
for months where she was. With the advice and con- 
sent of the grandparents the children were taken and 
placed in homes, but after some months the mother 
returned to the city and sought to regain them. She 
sought to get the four year old boy first. Knowing 
that he had been placed with a family in the Chris- 
tian Temple, but not knowing the family's name or 
their residence, she took her place for eight Sundays 
at the door of the primary department of the Sun- 



152 WORKING WITH GOD 

day-school, supposing that he was in attendance there. 
Being* a stranger in that section of the city she was 
not observed, but as it happened Henry was sick those 
eight weeks and so did not attend Sunday-school. 
Then she went through all that section of the city 
when the children were out at play in the afternoon, 
until she detected his laugh in one of the back yards. 
Going to the front door of the home, she rang the bell, 
representing herself as a recent member of the Chris- 
tian Temple who was out calling on the members in 
the neighborhood at the request of the minister. She 
asked after the members of the family, when the 
adopted mother, without suspecting anything, for she 
had never seen the real mother, called Henry in the 
room. He recognized his mother at once and ran from 
her. She left, announcing that she would call for 
him the next day, but the next day when she called 
there was no one at home. 

Later they removed to a most secluded section of 
Virginia, but the mother kept up the chase, following 
them to Virginia. The family refused to surrender 
the child. She returned to Baltimore and called for 
the first time at my residence, introducing herself as 
the mother of Henrj^ She had employed a lawyer 
and informed me that if I did not produce the child 
in a specified time, she would have me arrested for 
kidnapping, but we were fully prepared for any 
course she might take and I so informed her, with the 
suggestion that, if she would change her course of 
life and return to her husband we would possibly re- 
store the two older children to her, and after seeing 
how thej^ fared, we would take up the return of 



THE ORPHANAGE SOCIETY 153 

Henry. For several weeks we had a considerable 
battle, and several times it looked as though the case 
would get into court in spite of our efforts to keep it 
out, but finally the husband and wife consented to 
live together. In the meantime the older boy was 
drowned, but at the expiration of the year, which was 
the time required, the girl was returned to them, only 
to be involved shortly after in a public scandal which 
found its place in the newspapers. That ended any 
possibility of the return of Henry. What was most 
surprising in the turn of affairs was that they both 
appeared to see the wisdom of our course in trying 
to give Henry a chance, and he, being left undis- 
turbed in his Christian home in Virginia, is now 
growing into manhood and may some day be a min- 
ister of the Gospel. 

One morning a Lutheran pastor called up, saying 
he had a most distressing case. A husband and wife 
had died the same week, leaving eight children in des- 
titute circumstances. The relatives were willing to 
take seven but no one was willing to take the infant 
boy of a few months. The sad part is that in putting 
children of that age in an institution more than ninety 
per cent of them die, so even to succeed in getting 
this infant in an institution meant death, for he was 
already in a wretched condition, having been neglected 
so long on account of the illness of the father and 
mother. One of the women of the Orphanage Society 
went at once, taking him in her home and nursing 
him as though he had been her own child. It was 
fully two months before he was in a healthy condi- 
tion, so as to be placed in a permanent home. Then 



154 WORKING WITH GOD 

he was entrusted to a farmer just outside of Baltimore 
and lie is now nearly a man, strong, robust and a real 
comfort in the home where he has been adopted. 

The Lord's presence in this work has been very 
evident. While the Society has not always been able 
to grant requests for children, and frequently we 
have had much trouble with some of the children we 
have taken, and a constant care for all of them, 
nevertheless there have been many instances when 
we have had to say, ^'It is tlie Lord." A husband 
and wife called leaving an application for a child 
about a year old. An hour later, one of the women 
of the church brought to my office a German woman, 
who could not speak English, with an infant girl in 
her arms. She had been deserted by her husband, 
leaving her four children. The relatives agreed to 
take three if the infant could be put in an institu- 
tion, so that the mother could go to work. She had 
been walking all day, having been to many of the or- 
phanages in the city and refused because they were 
already overcrowded. In her distress she met this 
woman of the church, who could speak German, to 
whom she told her story. Our Society took the infant 
girl and an hour later she was the adopted child in 
the home of this husband and wife who had called an 
hour before. They were kind and insisted on the 
mother's visiting them from time to time. Although 
this is not generally allowed by our Society, we 
j'lelded in this instance because those who took the 
child requested it. 

A month or two afterwards was Christmas and 
late in the evening the mother called at my resi- 



A GROUP OF CHILDREX FROM TIIK TEMPLE ORPHANAGE 
SOCIETY 



THE ORPHANAGE SOCIETY 155 

dence. She was in great grief. I concluded at once 
that she wanted her child returned to her, but instead 
she wanted to be forgotten. In spending the day in 
the home where her child had been adopted she dis- 
covered that the love of her child had been trans- 
ferred from her to the adopted mother, and she was 
only as a stranger in the eyes of her own child. She 
was not in financial condition to take the cluld 
home, for she was getting only three dollars a week 
with not much prospect of an increase in wages. 
Brokenhearted she asked not to be notified any more 
relative to making a visit in the home where her 
child had been adopted. She could not endure the 
pain. She would be better satisfied to carry the 
remembrance that her little girl was being well cared 
for, though she might never seen her again, while she 
would be out in the world battling against hard condi- 
tions. 

There is no more tender ministry in the world than 
caring for orphans. It is the business of the church. 
Every orphanage is a sacred effort to be father and 
mother to that great army of children whose par- 
ents are either dead or are not in a position to provide 
for them. In those cases where parents are dissipated 
and cruel, it is usually better to take the children from 
them in order to save the little ones from growing 
up into a life of dissipation and crime, and for this 
condition the orphanage and orphanage society has 
a necessary and blessed service to render the com- 
munity. 

But where there is love and morality with the 
mother's earnest effort to keep the family together, 



156 WORKING WITH GOD 

it is usually far better for the State to contribute to 
the support of that home, allowing so much every 
month to a child until he reaches the age of fourteen, 
than to break up the home and rear the children in 
an institution without a mother's love. It is as much 
the duty of the State to provide for the orphan child 
in his home as to provide for his education at the 
public school. It would exemplify that great prin- 
ciple of the strong bearing the burdens of the weak. 
The Widow-Mother Pension Bill as passed the Mary- 
land legislature in 1^16, ought to pass every legisla- 
ture, along with the appropriations for education.* 
It is fundamental in the life of a nation to defend 
and protect the weak within their borders. If the 
orphan be given a fair chance with the best surround- 
ings that the State can provide in the maintenance 
of the home under the mother's care, he will prove 
himself worthy of the State's friendship and be an 
asset equal to, if not exceeding, any investment that 
the State can make. 

While a large number of children have been re- 
ceived and placed in homes by the Temple Orphanage 
Society, the work of the Society has been somewhat 
irregular owing to the pressure of other matters, no 
one of which was any more important, but by force 
of circumtances other issues came into preeminence. 



*The other members of the Committee of 100 for Pensions for 
Widow-Mothers of Maryland are, Mrs. Azro Cory, President Civic 
Study Club of Montgomery County; Mrs. Edward A. Robinson, Pres- 
ident Mothers' Congress of Maryland; Mrs. Mary A. Haslup, Pres- 
ident W. C. T. U. of Maryland; Mrs. William B. Wolf, Secretary 
Sisterhood Eutaw Place Hebrew Temple; John H. Ferguson, President. 
Maryland State Federation of Labor; James J. Carmody, Associate 
Judge Juvenile Court; Professor William Tappan, Jefferson School 
"for Boys; Miss Edna Annette Beveridge, Secretary, 2614 Charles 
Street Boulevard, Baltimore, etc. 



THE ORPHANAGE SOCIETY 157 

However, no part of my Baltimore work has been 
more precious to me than the care of these orphans. 
With a permanent organization, it is hoped that a 
building may be secured where a larger work can be 
done. Along with it ought to be a home for the 
aged. Little children can be easily placed in homes 
where they will be loved and cared for, but it is not 
so with the aged. Too frequently their own kin do 
not want them and, will not take them. Every 
church should provide a home for its aged saints. Its 
support belongs by the side of the missionary offering. 
"Pure religion and undefiled before our God and 
Father^' is to recognize the needs of the orphan and 
the aged as the needs of Christ Himself and go 
speedily to the help of Him, who helped us out of 
sin into the light of freedom. These are here in His 
stead, and through them He receives our ministries. 
The need is overwhelming and to us the voice is ever 
sounding from across the centuries: ''Undo the 
heavy burdened; let the oppressed go free; break 
every yoke; deal thy bread to the hungry; cover the 
naked with a garment; hide not thyself from thine 
own flesh; bind up the brokenhearted; set at liberty 
them that are bruised. Then shalt thou be called 
the repairer of the breach, the restorer of the paths 
to dwell in." 

No service is more beautiful in all the pale of hu- 
man activities than taking hold of the hand of the 
orphan and guiding his tender feet into the paths of 
righteousness. That child holds within himself the 
forces of manhood that are mightier than a university. 
All unconscious of his strength, he has within himself 



158 WORKING WITH GOD 

the sunsliine of heaven and the life of God is there. 
Orphanages are not simply buildings of brick and 
mortar, but when these shall have crumbled into dust 
there still will be remaining the real buildings, which 
are characters built out of fatherless and motherless 
boys and girls — characters strong and beautiful, that 
but for some orphanage institution or society might 
have been weak and worthless; characters that give 
muscle to the nation and adornment to the church. 
But the care of the aged is no less beautiful. The 
storms have swept over their paths, yet not fierce 
enough to lay them beneath the sod, but there they 
stand without home or friends, perhaps broken in 
life and aching in heart. The ploughshare of sorrow 
has cut great furrows in their faces and their hands 
are hard from the years of toil. Tired of the burdens 
of life, their staff has broken and a home for the aged 
stands to them as a shelter in the storms of life. The 
myriad of angels that look upon the trembling steps 
of childhood and the stumbling steps of the aged, 
and from whom sometimes seem to come the unseen 
angelic hand, must covet the task that has been given 
to the followers of Jesus. Before the New Testament 
was written, benevolence was the practice of the 
Church. It came in the morning of its strength and 
purity. Fellowship with the saints of Pentecost can 
come only through the practice of the principles of 
Pentecost. 



The Importance of Bible Study 



Nothing is more important in the life of an 
individual than to come in direct touch with the 
Word of God. The wisdom of time and eternity 
are on its pages and all its paths center in the 
personality of Jesus Christ. Those hours spent 
in the study of the Bible are golden periods in 
which tires are kindled that will burn upon the 
heart altars until the dawn of the eternal morn- 
ing. Poets, statesmen, prophets, priests, kings, 
shepherds, fishermen and apostles are the spokes- 
men, and while it must be recognized that they 
spoke and acted on the level they had reached, 
nevertheless the Holy Spirit was the inspirer, and 
so the Bible is at once unlike any other book 
in the world. As literature, we might say 
with Seeley that "the greatest work of individ- 
ual literary genius shows by the side of it like 
some building of hiunan hands beside the Peak 
of TenerifPe. '^ As a guide to holiness, there is 
no book like it. Wrote Edmund Scherer, whose 
stumbling faith could not reach beyond human 
life: *'If there is anything certain in this world 
it is that the destinies of the Bible are linked 
vrith. the destinies of holiness on earth." As the 
way to God, it is the one path. Out of a broken 
heart, Heine thus charmingly wrote: ''I attrib- 
ute my enlightenment entirely and simply to the 
reading of a book. Of a book! Yes, and it is 
an old, honest book, modest as Nature 
modest as the sun which warms us, as the bread 
which nourishes us, a book as full of love and 
blessing as the old mother who reads it with her 
dear, trembling lips; and this book is the Bible. 
With right it is named the Holy Scriptures. He 
who has lost his God can find Him again in this 
book; and he who has never known Him is here 
struck by the breath of the Divine Word." — 
From Introduction to the Stiidy of the Bible. 



160 



IX 

Seminary House and the Girls' Club 



The question is frequently asked, What is Sem- 
inary House? It is primarily a school where the 
English Bible is taught in night classes for busy 
people of all ages and in all communions, covering a 
course of three years. Is there anything more ? Yes, 
it has a girls' club connected with it where girls, 
irrespective of their church affiliations, room and 
board. Is that all? No, on the second floor of the 
Seminary House building are the offices of the min- 
ister of the Temple and of the Association for the Pro- 
motion of Christian Unity. 

Seminary House is an independent corporation en- 
tirely distinct from the Christian Temple.* This was 



*The name of the corporation is "The Seminary House, Incor- 
porated" and the purposes as stated in the charter are as follows: 
"(1) To promote the spirit of Christian fellowship among all com- 
munions by such methods as may be directed by the governing body; 
(2) To maintain a school for the teaching of the English Bible and 
other studies as aids to character building; (3) And to conduct such 
auxiliary organizations as will contribute to the common good." The 
by-laws are as follows: (1) The governing body of the Seminary 
House, Incorporated, shall be a board of trustees, of which one-third 
shall be elected annually for a period of three years. (2) Each rec- 
ognized auxiliary organization of the Seminary House, Incorporated, 
shall have the right of one representative on the board of trustees, the 
other members being elected by the active board. (3) When any 
trustee shall absent himself from two successive annual meetings of 
the board without assigning a sufficient reason, the trustees, at the 
close of the second meeting, shall have power to declare his seat 
vacant and to proceed to the election of a new trustee to supply the 
vacancy. (4) The board of trustees shall be composed of not less 
than twelve nor more than twenty-five members, and the said board 
of trustees shall meet annually on the fourth Monday in January. (5) 
The officers of the board of trustees shall be elected annually, and 
shall consist of a president, vice-president, secretary and treasurer, 
the auxiliary organizations having their own officers according to their 

161 



162 WORKING WITH GOD 

done 80 as to conform more perfectly to the interde- 
nominational work that it is doing, thereby making it 
equally free to all communions. In this chapter I 
shall tell of Seminary House under three divisions: 
first, the school; second, the Girls' Club and, third, 
the offices in Seminary House building. 

Seminary House is preeminently a school for 
Bible instruction. Seven years before the Temple 
was started I conducted in the Third Church a Bible 
class on Friday evenings at eight o'clock and later 
also a class for children at seven o'clock. Because of 
the pressure of other matters I thought several times 
of abandoning these classes, but the people insisted 
that they be continued, so I take no credit for the 
enlargement of this work. On the opening of the 
Temple, in 1905, a more extended course of Bible 
study was presented to the public, being divided into 



constitution and by-laws. (6) At the annual meeting of the board of 
trustees the treasurer or treasurers shall make full report or reports of 
the finances entrusted to his or their care. Likewise each department 
shall file a report of the work that has been done covering the pre- 
ceding twelve months. (7) A quorum of the board of trustees shall 
consist of five. (8) All auxiliary organizations must be duly recog- 
nized by resolutions passed by the board of trustees, and from these 
reports are to be annually received. Such organizations are to main- 
tain the self-governing policy. (9) The board of trustees shall select 
at its annual meeting the head of the Seminary House, Incorporated, 
who shall be known as its dean. With the advice and counsel of the 
trustees he shall have power from time to time to retain, regulate and 
establish the mode and course of instruction and education to be pur- 
sued in the school of the Seminary House, Incorporated. Together 
with such instruction as the board of trustees may designate, which 
shall be styled the faculty of the school of the Seminary House, In- 
corporated, he shall have power to adopt and enforce such laws as 
may be deemed expedient for the good government of the school. 
(10) The board of trustees shall grant the right to the school of the 
Seminary House, Incorporated, to issue certificates and diplomas on 
work done, according to the decision of the faculty of the school. 
Persons who hold diplomas from the school may become candidates 
for membership in an organization of the school of the Seminary 
House, Incorporated, known as the Society of the Guild of the Round 
Table, by reading such books as are named by the faculty, whereupon 
the holder of said diploma is granted a second seal on his or her 
diploma. 



163 



Freshmen, Junior and Senior classes under the name 
of the Christian Temple Seminary. On its incorpora- 
tion the name was changed to Seminary House, as 
being more appropriate and a three-story building 
was purchased at 504 North Fulton Avenue, which is 
three blocks from the Temple. For the purchase of 
this property a general appeal was made and gifts 
came from Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio 
and various parts of the country. 

The course of study covers the entire Bible. The 
Freshman class is devoted to the study of the first 
five books of the New Testament, the Junior class to 
the remaining books of the New Testament, with a 
supplementary course in Christian Missions, and the 
Senior class to the Old Testament with supplementary 
courses in Sunday-school pedagogy, church history 
and Christian evidences. There is also a class in 
English and German and a class for children. Each 
of these classes meets one evening a week and is in 
session one hour. The chief text-book is the Bible, the 
American Standard Version. Not being able to find 
any satisfactory book as a help for just the kind of 
work we were doing, I wrote the books for the Fresh- 
man and Junior years. The book for the Senior 
year was completed in part when the manuscript was 
lost and I have never taken up the task to rewrite it. 
There are two terms in a session — ^first term from 
October to December; second term from January to 
May. The course is practically free, the student pay- 
ing only one dollar a term for matriculation. They 
buy their Bibles from any store in tjie city if they 
are not supplied with one of sufficiently large print 



164 WORKING WITH GOD 

to study. The other books the}' buy from Seminary 
House, being one dollar a copj^ There is an examina- 
tion at the close of each term. On taking the six 
examinations, marking the entire Bible as directed 
and writing an essay, a diploma is granted with a 
gold seal; those who attend the lectures regularly 
through three sessions, do the required reading, mark 
their Bibles as directed, write an essay, but take no ex- 
aminations, are granted a diploma with a silver seal. 
The Bible is studied from the historical and devotional 
viewpoints — What are the facts ? And what are those 
facts to me? Like all proper Bible study it is con- 
ducted on a basis above denominational lines. The 
senior class is alwaj^s taken to Washington for a day 
in the Art Gallery, National Museum and Congres- 
sional Library. 

Having received a diploma, the holder may become 
a candidate for membership in the Society of the 
Guild of the Round Table — a kind of post-graduate 
work — ^by carefully reading sixteen books, a list of 
which is given each graduating class.* These books 
must be owned by the reader, not borrowed. Fre- 
quently the students form themselves into circles, 
meeting monthly at Seminary House and Review the 
books together, generally one book for a meeting. 



*The list for the class of 1916 is as follows: "True Estimate of 
Life," Morgan, 50 cents; "With the Tibetans in Tent and Temple," 
Rijnhart, $1.00; "God and Me," Ainslie. 25 cents; "The Life of 
Christ." Farrar, 50 cents; "The Ideal Life," Drummond, 50 cents; 
"Passion for Souls," Jowett, SO cents; "The Law of Friendship — 
Human and Divine," King, 50 cents; "The Teaching of the Books." 
Campbell-Willett, 50 cents; "The Meaning of Prayer," Fosdick, 50 
cents; "The Personal Life of David Livingstone," Blaikie, 50 cents: 
"Listening to God," Black, 50 cents; "Christianity and the Social 
Crisis," Rauschenbusch, 50 cents; "Times of Retirement," Matheson, 
SO cents; "Ministry of the Spirit," Gordon, 50 cents; Longfellow's 
Poems, and the Bible. 



SEMINARY HOUSE AND THE GIRLS ' CLUB 165 

Others read them alone. On completing this reading 
course a second seal is put on the diploma, entitling 
the holder to membership in the Society of the Guild 
of the Round Table, which maps out its own reading. 
It is helping in the Y. W. C. A. work in Japan and 
South America by such contributions as they can get 
together. 

The students are from all communions — Presby- 
terian, Episcopalian, Methodist Episcopal, Methodist 
Protestant, Lutheran, Baptist, Reformed, United 
Brethren, United Presbyterian, Brethren, Disciples, 
Roman Catholics, independent churches, no church 
relation, and occasionally a Hebrew. There are six 
teachers who give their services free, besides there is 
a supplementary course of lectures given by ministers 
of the various communions. The chairman of the 
board of trustees is Dr. Robert T. Wilson, a well 
known surgeon and Christian worker, being a deacon 
in the First Presbyterian Church. 

The purpose of this school is to make better Chris- 
tians by familiarizing them with the Word of God 
and establishing a standard of reading that will con- 
tribute to the home life and spiritual growth in gen- 
eral. More than forty churches in the city have been 
represented in its student body, which is usually about 
one hundred a session. In the session marking the 
close of my twenty-fifth year there are one hundred 
and fifteen. These go back to their work, better 
equipped Sunday-school teachers, church officers and 
church workers in general; others have become min- 
isters of the Gospel, whose ministries have been great- 
ly blessed, some starting into the ministry at once. 



166 WORKING WITH GOD 

others taking an additional course in some college — if 
a Presbyterian, in a Presbyterian college, if a Baptist, 
in a Baptist College, if a Disciple, in a college of 
that communion, but from the kindling of these fires 
men and women have gone forth into larger service, 
teaching the Bible with increased passion and them- 
selves stronger Christians in consequence of their own 
Bible knowledge, emphasizing the motto of Seminary 
House, which is ''The treasures of wisdom and knowl- 
edge are hidden in Christ." 

The Girls' Club really antedates Seminary House, 
although from its name it appears to have been started 
at the same time, or later. As the editor and pub- 
lisher of The Christian Tribune, a sixteen page weekly 
paper, I made the offer to give all the profits of the 
paper to the establishment of a ''Home for Working 
Girls." It was only an offer, however, for the paper 
had no profits, having cost during its six years of 
publication considerably above its receipts. But 
through its columns appeals were made for this 
cause, bringing many contributions from various parts 
of the country, so that when the home was started it 
was called ''The Christian Tribune Home for Work- 
ing Girls. ' ' On the consolidation of The Tribune with 
The Christian Century of Chicago, the home for a 
time was called simply ' ' The Girls ' Home ' ' and later, 
on the purchase of the property at 508 North Fulton 
Avenue, it was deeded to Seminary House, taking the 
name of "The Girls' Club of Seminary House." 

About the time I made the offer referred to and 
before there was any treasury for the home I ac- 
cepted an invitation to deliver an address at a con- 



SEMINARY HOUSE AND THE GIRLS ' CLUB 167 

vention meeting at Strasburg, Va. In the course of the 
address I referred to the many problems facing us in 
these days, merely mentioning that of working girls 
in the great cities and our purpose to some day have 
a home for them in Baltimore. At the close of the 
service, among those who pushed their way to the 
front was a poorly clad girl, who put in my hand two 
coins, saying as she did so, ''Take this for the girls' 
home, ' ' and turned away in tears. As soon as I could 
conveniently look into my hand, there lay a dime and 
a cent — eleven cents. I looked around for the girl, 
but she had gone. The purpose had been served, how- 
ever. I took this simple incident as God's call for 
me to begin raising the money for this work instead 
of depending on the profits of the paper. 

On returning to the city, a circular letter was sent 
out asking for one dollar from every person who re- 
ceived the circular. My sister, who helped me in all 
this work, selected the names. One of these was that 
of B. F. Newcomer, a leading capitalist of the city. 
He replied next day, saying that he would give a 
hundred dollars if it were to be a non-sectarian insti- 
tution. On being informed of its character his gift 
followed. A little while after he wrote inquiring how 
I was getting on raising the money and sent an- 
other hundred dollars. Several months after he again 
wrote facetiously asking what I was doing with the 
money, and sent another hundred dollars. Other 
money came mostly in small sums until we had more 
than a thousand dollars, when for some reason receipts 
fell off. 

I had associated with me a board of lady managers 



168 WORKING WITH GOD 

and among these were some of the most faithful women 
I have ever known, tender in sympathy and beautiful 
in fidelity to this cause. We had our monthly meet- 
ings in the parlor of the West Branch Y. M. C. A. At 
one of these meetings, which was not largely attended, 
some of the women expressed themselves as doubting 
our ability to raise the money, as well as the imprac- 
ticability of such a home with its cheap board and 
large expense. It was one of those discouraging 
meetings that drop in somehow from somewhere, we 
know not, only I remember I keenly felt the discour- 
agement, but I concealed it until on my way home 
up North Carey Street I laid the whole matter before 
God, letting Him see that I saw the establishing of 
this work was solely for His glory and I sought to 
know His will bj^ some immediate evidence, as to 
whether we should go forward or not. 

On reaching home, the afternoon mail had come — 
just one letter, but I was so concerned that I threw it 
unopened on the desk. I was not looking for an an- 
swer by letter. In fact, I do not know that I had an 
expectation from any special source, only I wanted 
God to know my heart and I wanted to know His 
will. Next day when the morning mail came, I opened 
the letters, among them this very much soiled one of 
yesterday. In it was a soiled foolscap sheet, writ- 
ten at the very top in a small hand, ' ' The First Na- 
tional Bank of Fredericksburg will pay to Peter 
Ainslie one hundred dollars for the girls' home. 
George Coleman. ' ' Not so much as a line of explana- 
tion accompanied it. What Fredericksburg is that? 
And who is George Coleman? I had never heard of 



SEMINARY HOUSE AND THE GIRLS ' CLUB 160 

him and I began to wonder if it were really a good 
check. I took it to the bank. In a few days I was 
called up and informed that the check had been 
cashed and the money was there waiting for me. 
Then I knew it was the Lord again speaking to me 
and I was so ashamed that I had doubted on the way 
after He gave me the eleven cents to start with. A 
few days after a letter came from Mr. Newcomer, who 
had already given several hundred dollars, asking 
what progress I was making and requesting me to 
call at his office, for up to this time I had never 
met him. On this occasion, he gave five hundred 
dollars and later he gave more. In a few weeks 
enough money had come in to buy a house on Fay- 
ette Street and furnish it, so that the home was opened 
for the reception of girls on October 13, 1899. Later 
wc moved further up Fayette Street. 

After conducting it for about ten years as a home, 
there were so many things about it that were unsatis- 
factory to us, especially the girls not appearing to be 
a definite part of the home, that it was decided to 
make it a club, somewhat after the order of the Jane 
Club of Hull House, Chicago. I visited there and 
made a special study of it in this interest. The board 
of managers was dissolved. The house was turned 
over to the girls without matron, cook or rules. The 
girls were asked to assume authority, organize them- 
selves and make their own rules, with no one to be 
responsible to other than the board of trustees of Sem- 
inary House, to whom they would make annual re- 
ports relating to their finances and general conduct 
of the club. 



170 WORKING ^VITH GOD 

This self-government principle brought these girls 
to the front in self-reliance and independence as noth- 
ing else we had done. They surprised us in taking 
control. They made their own rules,* calling upon 
each girl to be responsible for carrying them out. 
This has not always been done by all the girls with 
that fine sense of responsibility desired, but through 
the years enough girls have always been in the Club 
to somewhat maintain these ideals, holding the reputa- 
tion of the Club as a sacred trust, whether at their 
places of employment during the day or in the Club 
building in the evenings. 

More than six hundred girls have passed through 
this institution, having come from nearly half the 
states in the Union, especially from Maryland, Vir- 
ginia and Pennsylvania, besides from England, Scot- 
land, Germany and France. They have been mem- 



*The following rules furnish an idea of how it is run: (1) Its ob- 
ject is to secure and promote mutual comfort and improvement of its 
members and to develop self-reliance. (2) There shall be three classes 
of members — resident, non-resident and honorary. The resident mem- 
bers are" self-supporting unmarried women or widows, without de- 
pendent children, between the ages of sixteen and thirty-five, and are 
limited to the number of twenty -five; the non-resident members are 
the same except they are limited to fifty; the honorary members are 
older women and the number is limited to twenty. (3) All applica- 
tions for membership must be proposed in writing, signed by two 
members of the Club and accompanied by two letters of recommenda- 
tion. Voting must be by ballot and a majority of those voting shall 
be necessary for an election. Honorary members have not the right 
of voting. (4) All members pay an initiation fee of 25 cents and 5 
cents for weekly dues. In addition to this, resident members pay 
$3.00 a week for board. (5) The regular business meeting of the 
Club will be held on the second Monday evening of each month. All 
oflScers change in October and April. (6) Each member is responsible 
for the cleaning and order of her room. Beds must be put in order 
before leaving in the morning. (7) Gas in each room must be 
turned down when members leave the room. All lights must be 
turned off by 10:45 P.M. (8) Members must not deprive any one 
from the use of the parlor or dining room by closing the door or turn- 
ing down the lights. (9) No member is allowed to have the parlor for 
gentlemen callers more than three nights a week, including Sunday 
night. All company must leave at 10:30 P.M. (10) Staying on the 
front steps for any length of time after 10:30 P.M. is strictly for- 
bidden. 




"m 



za .BD rx-i. 






^m 



m 



SEMINARY HOUSE AND THE GIRLS ' CLUB 171 

bers of nearly every Protestant communion, besides 
Eoman Catholics and occasionally a Jewess. No girl 
is admitted if a stranger, except she bear two letters 
of recommendation. She is voted into membership of 
the Club by all the girls and if she does not conform 
to the Club requirements she is voted out. Each girl 
has a certain responsibility and all the girls are sup- 
posed to work loyally for the Club principles. There 
is a non-resident membership as well as a resident 
membership, each paying five cents a month dues. 
They have embroidery classes in the evening and oc- 
casionally a lecture. The Club belongs to the girls. 

They employ the cook, pay for the fuel, light, gro- 
ceries, repairs on the furniture and such like. The 
trustees look after the property. The Club has at- 
tained a reputation in the city made by the girls 
themselves, that indicates a high standard of char- 
acter. 

On the second floor of Seminary House are the of- 
fices for conducting the affairs of the Temple, Semin- 
ary House and the Association for the Promotion of 
Christian Unity. The secretaries are busy there from 
nine o'clock in the morning until five in the after- 
noon and frequently later. Sometimes the work of 
the Temple and Seminary House requires these offices 
to be kept open until ten o'clock at night. In fact, 
some attendant is usually there from six to ten, for 
students are coming in about their Seminary work 
or some one from the Temple regarding some problem 
that concerns them. No hour is too crowded to see 
people. The doors are open to all callers, there being 
several hundred a month, some from the Temple, some 



172 WORKING WITH GOD 

from other communions and some from out of the 
city, but all are welcomed. 

Almost every kind of interest has come up there 
for consideration — matters regarding reconciliation 
of individuals or renewing one's covenant with God 
or some great trouble of a personal character, or the 
disrupted affairs of some home, or regarding the 
church, or matters of general city interest, or some 
financial conditions leading to legal proceedings, or 
maybe just a social caller, and sometimes a group of 
children, but whatever the issue or whoever the per- 
son, he is met as one who is a member of the council 
of friends. Sometimes the way is made easier to the 
burdened hy a word of counsel, a prayer or a Scrip- 
tural passage ; sometimes G-od gives the answer that is 
being sought ; sometimes a recreation period drops in 
when others minister to me with their confidence and 
friendship. 

There are other hours for correspondence, for 
more than twenty-five thousand pieces of mail go out 
annually from these offices. The Temple secretary 
has the correspondence relative to the affairs of the 
Temple and Seminary House. The other correspond- 
ence has to do with the work of the Association for 
the Promotion of Christian Unity, taking the entire 
time of one secretary. Most of the letters are an- 
swered briefly and easily, but not infrequently a day 's 
mail will bring letters that require most careful an- 
swers. Here is one from a man of some prominence 
attacking severely another communion, calling in 
question its sincerity and claims. I must answer this 
letter just as frankly as though I were a member of 
that communion and say nothing that I would not 



SEMINARY HOUSE AND THE GIRLS ' CLUB 173 

say if my best friends in that communion were sit- 
ting by my side. Here is another from a mission- 
ary of many years' residence in one of the Asiatic 
fields, making a severe attack on my own communion 
in consequence of having read one of my statements 
regarding friendliness for all Christians. He does 
not say so, but it would appear that some missionary 
of my communion had not treated him fairly and he 
holds the entire communion responsible. I must not 
only answer this letter at considerable length, but so 
answer it that I shall prove without direct argument 
that he is in error regarding the entire communion 
and if possible make him my friend. Here is still 
another from a minister in my own communion, charg- 
ing me in consequence of my friendship with men in 
other communions that I am unfaithful to the teach- 
ings of my own communion, for as he claims, "No 
man can be true to his own religious body if he is 
very friendly with ministers in other religious 
bodies." I must answer this leaving myself out en- 
tirely, showing him his error and the great sin of 
his sectarianism, in which he denies by his carnal 
walk one of the most fundamental principles in re- 
ligion, but do it so kindly and with sufficient strength, 
that I may win him, for he is a good man, but has mis- 
understood Jesus. To another I must write a firm 
rebuke for some wrong that only strong words can 
reveal. This is a part of the work of reconcilia- 
tion in the House of Grod — only a letter that no 
one may see except the one to whom it is written, but 
I may see it again in the day of Christ in His pierced 
hand. It could have been improved, but it was the 



174 WORKING WITH GOD 

best I could do for peace among brothers, with so 
many other things pressing upon me, and I count it 
a worth while part of my ministry. ' ' Thus our deeds 
and our not-deeds," says Brierley, ''like invisible 
hosts, move with us on the march, projecting their 
brightness or their shaows across each foot of our on- 
ward track. ' ' 

Seminary House building is used for meetings of 
various kinds. Frequently every evening in the week, 
except Sunday, there is some kind of meeting there 
and sometimes in the afternoons. It is preeminently 
a place of service and there is no occasion to quarrel 
with to-day, for whatever else the day may lack it is 
as full of opportunity as cherry trees in April are full 
of blossoms. 

The next move in this work is the raising of fifty 
or sixty thousand dollars as an endowment for the 
permanent conduct of Seminary House and the ques- 
tion is. Is it worth while? 



PART TWO 



Reading 



Next to living persons, good books are my 
best friends. I love them as though they were 
persons — ^my love reaches to the personality back 
of the printed page. They speak to me out of 
mutual friendship. ... A few well-chosen 
books — in history, poetry and religion — furnish 
the basis for a good library, and booka of travel, 
fiction, science and kindred branches may be 
added later. Slow reading and digesting is bet- 
ter than multifarious reading. I will not be 
ashamed if I have not read a new book, however 
popular it may be. I must discriminate in what 
I read, as in what I eat; but though my choice 
may be largely for religious books, even these 
must be read with care, for if they take away 
my taste for reading the Bible they do me harm; 
or if my love for them makes the Bible second- 
ary, they are injurious. The Bible is the book 
for my constant reading. Euskin said, *'I con- 
sider memorizing much of the Bible the most 
precious and, on the whole, the one essential 
part of my education. ' ' And spiritually, its 
reading is absolutely essential to my soul. It 
must be the center, and all my reading should 
lead up to it. — From God and Me. 



176 



X 

With Books and Periodicals 



I used to hear my father facetiously say to his 
guests that when a young man his desire was to be- 
come a preacher, an editor, an author, get married 
and be rich. He attained to all except the last, as he 
himself used to say. He got that, however, if it be 
explained in terms of character and not coin. For 
myself, I did not have such an ambitious programme, 
although I attained to the first three at very early 
years — too early perhaps. Of the last I could say 
with Faraday and Agassiz, ''I have no time to get 
rich.'' The days have been crowded from my first 
entrance into the ministry, so that I have not hesi- 
tated to take the midnight hours for study and writ- 
ing — from ten to two o'clock. The city is then quiet, 
there being no telephone calls, no ringing of the door- 
bell, no callers and only now and then a stray vehi- 
cle on the street or a belated pedestrian. I can do 
in those four hours what it would take me twice the 
time in the day to accomplish. Perhaps rising early 
in the morning would be better, but I just never 
started in that way. If this time was not sufficient, 
I would sometimes get a desk at one of the libraries 
in a secluded corner for work during the day. 

I never did like to write and I only do it because I 
cannot escape from it, which is illustrated in the ap- 
pearance of my little book "God and Me." On a 

177 



178 WORKING WITH GOD 

Sunday afternoon I delivered an address at the Y. 
M. C. A. Toward the close I used several times the 
phrase ''with God and me." I do not remember ever 
having used that expression before and somehow I 
could not get rid of it. It came into the evening ser- 
mon in my own pulpit. Next morning I awoke with 
that phrase ringing in my ears. I never thought of 
making it into a book, but I forthwith wrote the open- 
ing paragraph, thinking that would be the end of it, 
but that did not exhaust it. I' had to write more un- 
til I had written the whole book. 

I sent the manuscript to Fleming H. Kevell Com- 
pany, New York, but it was returned. Not so much 
for the merit, but because of the work that I had put 
on it, I decided to publish it myself, using it only in 
my own work. On its appearance, however, it was 
published in England and application was made for 
its publication in Australia. Fleming H. Revell Com- 
pany reconsidered their decision and asked for its 
publication. It has been translated into several lan- 
guages and is published in five countries. I get no 
royalty on it in order that it may be kept at the lowest 
possible figure. Whether of little or much worth, 
the midnight hours put on it are fully compensated 
in letters that come from all parts of the world, say- 
ing that it has helped somebody on the way to God. 
Here is a letter relative to its service in the Cali- 
fornia penitentiary: 

''The boys love that little book 'God and Me.' I 
am willing to do what I can for them, but I have to 
make a good many of them promise to return it or 
I wiU not let them have it. I cannot tell how many 



WITH BOOKS AND PERIODICALS 179 

have started reading their Bibles since reading this 
blessed little book. One young man has had it twice 
and has asked me to let him have it again. Another 
enjoyed it so much that he copied the entire book on 
scraps of paper, so he could have it to read often. ' ' 

I need not tell of the other nine books that I have 
written in these twenty-five years, other than to say 
that while none of them have been satisfactory to me, 
for had I the time I would rewrite the entire ten, 
nevertheless I am grateful that God has blessed these 
publications, along with little more than two dozen 
other books that I have contributed to by one or more 
articles. 

From time to time I published tracts and pamph- 
lets on various religious themes. At Pittsburgh, in 
1909, the Disciples celebrated the centennial of the 
appearance of Thomas Campbell's document entitled 
''A Declaration and Address," which was a call for 
the unity of Christendom, insisting that ''nothiAg 
ought to be received into the faith and worship of the 
Church or be made a term of communion among 
Christians, that is not as old as the New Testament. ' ' 
It was the same idea emphasized by Edward Stilling- 
fleet, afterwards bishop of "Worchester in his ''Ireni- 
cum" published in 1662, when he said: ''For the 
Church to require more than Christ Himself did, or 
make the condition of her communion more than 
our Saviour did of discipleship, is wholly unwar- 
ranted." Campbell's document was a kind of decla- 
ration of religious independence and in a sense was 
the beginning of the fellowship of the Disciples, al- 
though they did not become a separate people until 



180 WORKING VaTH. GOD 

some years later, perhaps counting 1832 as the right- 
ful date,, so that really their centennial still lies in the 
future. But the Pittsburgh meeting was a great af- 
fair and many thousands attended it, some saying as 
many as thirty thousand. 

At that convention, greatly to my surprise, I was 
elected the president of the American Christian Mis- 
sionary Society, which is the Home Missionary Board 
of the Disciples and chiefly carries with it presiding 
over most of the sessions of the next annual conven- 
tion. I am sure that I never thought of occupying 
that position and I could hardly believe that I had 
been so honored by my brethren, when that evening 
at the Bethany College banquet, F. D. Power, of 
Washington, came over to me with his congratula- 
tions. When I inquired what I was being congratu- 
lated for, he informed me of the action of the con- 
vention during the day and then chided me for not 
being there to know what was going on. 

At first I shrank from the thought of it, for I do 
not like to preside over meetings of any kind, much 
less a large convention. It had been the custom for 
the men holding that position to take it as an honor 
at the hands of the brethren and preside over the 
deliberations of the convention, including the deliver- 
ering of the president's address. That kind of a posi- 
tion, however, was not suited to me any more than 
presiding over a convention. So I began to think of 
what use I could make of such an opportunity for the 
advancement of the cause of Christ among men. In 
consequence, I wrote ''An Open Letter to Protest- 
ants," entitled, "The Unfinished Task of the Refor- 



WITH BOOKS AND PERIODICALS 181 

nation, ' ' which to me was unity. It was in pamphlet 
form covering seventeen pages, and twenty-one thou- 
sand copies were distributed throughout the United 
States. It aroused considerable comment and some 
criticism, which involved a correspondence with many 
persons in other communions. Perhaps I would not 
write it now as I wrote it then, but it served to awaken 
interest in the subject of Christian unity. I had no 
idea at the time of writing it other than simply to 
call attention to the greatest need of Protestantism. 
At the next General Convention of the Disciples, 
which was held in Topeka, Kansas, October 11-18, 
1910, the Council on Christian Union of the Disciples 
of Chirst was organized, later taking the name of the 
Association for the Promotion of Christian Unity, of 
which I shall speak in another chapter. This latter 
name was considered more appropirate, as it identi- 
fied this new organization more definitely with the 
"Christian Association of Washington, Pennsyl- 
vania, ' ' started by Thomas Campbell. Various tracts 
on this subject followed in their publication. 

I began writing for the press when I w^as quite a 
lad, first in the religious papers and later in both the 
religious and secular, in the latter as a reporter for a 
time. In 1894, I started a weekly paper under the 
name of The Cliristian Tribune, first publishing it in 
Baltimore, then having it done in Richmond, going 
there every Monday to oversee its publication. Grow- 
ing weary of its mechanical department, I had it pub- 
lished in St. Louis and in 1900 I sold it to TTie Cliris- 
tian Century of Chicago. A good part of the time it 
was sixteen pages, a worthy list of contributors filled 



182 WORKING WITH GOD 

its columns every week and its readers were loyal in 
its support. But I was doing too much, and I knew 
it. I either had to give up the paper or my pastorate. 
Plans were being made to put the paper on a sub- 
stantial basis, for it had not been a paying proposi- 
tion at all, its expenses having exceeded its income 
until tbe last two years. I was nearly a year deciding 
what I should do, for having become attached to it, I 
found it very difficult to break away. The appeal of 
the pastorate, however, was greater than that of the 
paper, and I signed the papers for its transfer, think- 
ing at that time, and perhaps saying it, that I would 
never be the editor of another paper. I have con- 
tributed to a number of papers since and have en- 
joyed that work, sometimes as a regular contributor 
and in other instances only occasionally. On the 
establishment of the Association for the Promotion of 
Christian Unity I found myself again an editor, this 
time of a quarterly, however, under the name of Tke 
Christian Union Quarterly. Its readers are in all 
communions and in all parts of the world. Perhaps 
I have told enough regarding my contributions to 
books and papers, for all that I have done is very 
small by the side of the fine achievements of others 
in this field. In spite of the imperfection in my con- 
tributions, I have some satisfaction in the conscious- 
ness that God appears to have made some use of them. 
I turn from my small efforts to talk about the 
books of others, which for myself I find to be a more 
congenial theme. When I enter a room, especially 
if waiting on the occasion of making a call, I observe 
at once the pictures on the wall and the books on the 



WITH BOOKS AND PERIODICALS 183 

table or in the case. Whether the home is very humble 
or elegantly furnished I am indifferent by the side of 
these, for pictures and books are two sources from 
which the inner self is fed. At a moment's glance, as 
a rule, I have gotten the mind and heart of the oc- 
cupants of that home before any one of the family 
appears in the parlor. If there are no pictures or no 
books the revelation is no less clear, or if there are 
only family portraits and sets of handsomely bound 
volumes, which are usually for ornamentation rather 
than for use, it is still a revealer of the mind and 
heart. 

What a companionship in a library! There is an 
eagerness in the atmosphere. Each book on the shelf 
seems to be awaiting its turn to serve us, its author 
bowing and saying, ''May I speak to you now?" 
There is no irritation if the book is rejected. They 
are never so discourteous as to answer back and they 
mingle there like comrades, lighting up the whole 
library with an equality that makes one feel his kin- 
ship with all who write. Shakespeare is by the side 
of Southey among the poets, Macaulay is by the side 
of Peter Parley among the historians, Augustine is 
by the side of Richard Baxter among the theologians, 
and Dickens is by the side of Balzac among the novel- 
ists. Whoever we may be, unknown and unobserved, 
we sit among them all, talking about them as though 
they were near neighbors or some dear relative, al- 
though thousands of years may lie between us and 
them along with those ridged cleavages of races and 
nations. 

It is difficult to separate an author from what he 



184 WORKING WITH GOD 

writes. I do not know as I care to. My natural habit 
of thinking has caused me to center my interest around 
the author rather than the book. The book helps me 
to understand the author. It is his personality that 
I feel and that helps me to live. Nothing links us so 
much together as when one life touches another by 
actual contact in the struggle for the soul's better- 
ment, if only it is a look in the face of the living man. 
I prefer to talk of men and the way they live than 
their books or the things they do. 

I had read nearly everything that came from the 
pen of Frederic W. Farrar and followed him with 
sympathetic interest, but when I heard him in his own 
pulpit in Canterbury, it left a remembrance that I 
shall never forget. His remarkable style in writing — 
so clear, picturesque and poetic — was greatly aug- 
mented in beauty and reverence as the words fell 
from his own lips. I looked into his benevolent face, 
charmed by the humility and devotion in his bear- 
ing. The fact of having heard him was a commentary 
on all that he had written. The ancient city of Can- 
terbury, the historic cathedral and the distinguished 
canon crowd into my memory with all the glory of a 
sunset. 

It was so with Joseph Parker. I read after him, as 
many other preachers did in that day. He was unlike 
the Anglican canon in many things, but both men 
had that same master grasp of ideas and threw their 
picturesque thought before you as though they had 
sat together at the feet of the same prophets and poets. 
My first day in the City Temple was at a noon meet- 
ing on Thursday during a pouring rain, so common 



WITH BOOKS AND PERIODICALS 185 

to London weather conditions. The building was 
comfortably full and Dr. Parker's towering person- 
ality made more vital to me those things I had read in 
his books. I do not remember many of my own ser- 
mons, much less the sermons of others, but the pic- 
tures in Dr. Parker's sermon that day on the shepherd 
life, illustrating God 's care of us, linger with me like 
the pictures I saw on my first day in the Louvre. On 
talking with him, he bore to me a gentleness and kind- 
ness that so satisfied my heart as to make me feel on 
the occasion of that first trip to England that the 
City Temple was not simply the cathedral of British 
Non-comformity, but the cathedral of London Chris- 
tianity. After hearing Phillips Brooks, whose finely 
set mind poured forth without stint the graces of his 
heart, I read after him with double interest. D. L. 
Moody, whose passion for winning men the life of 
which I have never seen, helped me in simplifying the 
Scriptures, speaking in such simple language 
rather than obscuring the truth in academic terms, 
Avhich is so common in present day preaching. 
Likewise I have felt my debt to Edward Everett Hale, 
Joseph Cook, Alexander Whyte, and scores of others 
like them whom I have heard. 

I count of value the books by Campbell Morgan 
and other English and Scotch preachers, whose think- 
ing is far more reverential than much of our Ameri- 
can thinking. Of all the lives of Jesus none surpasses 
''The Days of His Flesh," by David Smith, al- 
though Farrar's ''Life of Christ" will always remain 
a classic. The commentary on the first five books of 
the New Testament by Lyman Abbott helped me 



186 WORKING WITH GOD 

greatly in the early years of my ministry. I have 
never hesitated to read anything that I thought 
would help me in my understanding of God and my 
fellows, from Hamack and Sabatier to Alexander 
Campbell. I am always refreshed in reading several 
chapters from one of Brieiiey's books. How I wish 
he might have lived long enough to have written 
another dozen volumes. 

In his little book on ''Books that Have Helped 
Me, ' ' Canon Farrar named the following authors and 
books, besides the Bible, as the most helpful : Bunyan, 
Dante, Imitation of Christ, Shakespeare and Milton. 
He also said, ' ' If all the books in the world were in a 
blaze, the first twelve which I would snatch out of 
the flames would be : The Bible, Homer, Thucydides, 
Virgil, Dante, Milton, Imitation of Christ, ^schylus, 
Tacitus, Marcus Aurelius, Shakespeare and Wads- 
worth. Of living authors I would save first the works 
of Tennyson, Browning and Ruskin." 

I wrote to six well-known men in American church 
life, asking to name a dozen books that had 
helped them most — all ministers. Of these six, three 
are in the active pastorate and three are holding col- 
lege positions. 

William T. Manning, rector of Trinity Church, 
New York, wrote : 

' ' It is difficult to be sure what are the books which 
have most helped one, and the list which I send 
leaves out many which I feel should be included. I 
confine myself to those which are distinctively in the 
sphere of religion, and among these are certainly the 
following: (1) The Writings of St. Clement of Alex- 



WITH BOOKS AND PERIODICALS 187 

andria; (2) 'De Civitate Dei,' St. Augustine; (3) 
Dante 's ' Divina Commedia ; ' ( 4 ) Pascal 's ' Thoughts ; ' 
(5) Theologia Germanica; (6) Writings of William 
Law, especially 'The Spirit of Love' and 'The Spirit 
of Prayer;' (7) Writings of Frederick Denison Mau- 
rice; (8) 'Atonement and Personality,' R. C. Mo- 
berly; (9) Writings of William Porcher Du Rose, 
especially 'The Gospel in the Gospels;' (10) Writings 
of R. W. Church; (11) 'Social Aspects of Christi- 
anity,' West<?ott; (12) Poems of Robert Browning; 
(13) Writings of J. R. lUingworth, especially 'Di- 
vine Immanence.' " 

Charles E. Jefferson, pastor of Broadway Taber- 
nacle Church, New York, wrote: 

"I presume the books that have helped me most 
were Emerson's Essays, Carlyle's 'Sartor Resartus' 
and Shakespeare's Dramas, for they all dropped into 
my mind at the time when I was being made. I have 
always been influenced and moulded by the poets, 
and the great biographies, and by history, but to 
name any few books is quite beyond me. ' ' 

Junius B. Remensnyder, pastor of St. James 
Lutheran Church, New York, wrote: 

"(1) Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason,' (2) 
Neander's 'History of the Christian Church;' (3) 
Boswell's 'Life of Johnson;' (4) Shakespeare; (5) 
Hedge's 'Prose Writers of Germany;' (6) Kostlin's 
'Life of Luther;' (7) Prof. Rothe's 'Still Hours;' 
(8) 'Life of St. Francis of Assisi;' (9) Gibbon's 
'Decline and Fall of Rome;' (10) Eucken's 'Problem 
of Life;' (11) Pascal's 'Thoughts;' (12) Dorner's 
'History of Protestant Theology.' " 

Charles R. Brown, dean of the School of Religion, 
Yale University, wrote : 



188 WORKING WITH GOD 

'*! give you herewith the names of a dozen books 
which have been particularly helpful to me in my 
ministry: (1) 'History of the Jewish Church/ by 
Dean Stanley; (2) 'The Apostolic Age/ by A. C. 
McGiffert; (3) 'St. Paul, Traveller and Roman Cit- 
izen,' by W. M. Ramsay; (4) 'Yale Lectures on 
Preaching,' by N. J. Burton; (5) 'Things Funda- 
mental,' by Charles E. Jefferson; (6) 'God's Educa- 
tion of Man,' by William DeWitt Hyde; (7) 'Ser- 
mons' by Frederick W. Robertson; (8) 'Literature 
and Dogma,' by Matthew Arnold; (9) 'Lectures on 
Preaching,' by Phillips Brooks; (10) 'Outline of 
Christian Theology',' by William Newton Clarke; 

(11) 'Master and Man,' by WiUiam Burnett Wright; 

(12) 'Spiritual Development of St. Paul,' by George 
Matheson. ' ' 

J. Ross Stevenson, president of the Theological 
Seminary, Princeton, wrote: 

"I am naturally omitting such classic works as 
Bunyan 's ' Pilgrim 's Progress, ' Bishop Andrew 's ' The 
Preces Privat^e,' Baxter's 'Reformed Pastor' and so 
on, and include only modern books: (1) Hodges' 
'Outlines of Theology;' (2) Clarke's 'Outline of 
Christian Theology;' (3) Orr's 'The Christian View 
of God and the World;' (4) Cairn's 'Christianity in 
the Modern World;' (5) Edersheim's 'Life and 
Times of Jesus the Messiah;' (6) Bruce's 'Training 
of the Twelve;' (7) Dennis' 'Christian Missions and 
Social Progress;' (8) Phillips Brooks' 'Lectures on 
Preaching;' (9) Bushnell's 'Sermons for the New 
Life;' (10) Allen's 'Life of Phillips Brooks;' (11) 
Blaikie's 'Life of Livingstone;' (12) Smith's 'Henry 
Martyn.' " 

Herbert L. Willett, dean of the Disciples Divinity 
House, University of Chicago, wrote: 



WITH BOOKS AND PERIODICALS 189 

' ' For general reading values and inspirational sig- 
nificance I think the following are among the most 
useful books to me: (1) Fairbairn's 'The Place of 
Christ in Theology;' (2) Sabatier's 'Religions of Au- 
thority and the Religion of the Spirit;' (3) Hyde's 
'God's Education of Man' and 'Jesus' Way;' (4) 
E. Griffith-Jones' 'The Ascent Through Christ;' (5) 
George Adam Smith's 'The Higher Criticism and the 
Preaching of the Old Testament;' (6) Chas. Cuth- 
bert Hall's 'Jesus Christ and the Human Race;' (7) 
Dante's 'The Divine Comedy;' (8) Tennyson's 'The 
Idylls of the King.' " 

It is of great value to know what books a man has 
read, for his reading has helped him to be what he is, 
nevertheless not learning but holiness is the need of 
these times. The only real learning is to know the will 
of God and do it. I have been entirely indifferent as to 
whether the author represents my viewpoint or not. 
Perhaps I would read after him more readily if he did 
not. I have tried to get all angles from which men 
view truth. I read the most radical interpretation by 
the side of the most conservative, leaving my heart to 
make choice of the way that is wisest, so I discard as 
readily the conclusions of one side as the other and ac- 
cept the findings of one as quickly as the other. I am 
not at all concerned about consistency in my efforts to 
find the truth. I suppose I always shall be incon- 
sistent in the eyes of some, but truth never is, and 
better still as Milton said, "Truth was something to 
be sent out into the world and it would take care of 
itself." 

Interpretations of truth change with the epochs of 
history. New influences cast new shadows and men 



190 WORKING ^^^TH GOD 

begin writing afresh. By constant searching we shall 
find the way, however dark and broken the path is 
now. The deadening condition is to let others think 
for US, accepting their conclusions because they repre- 
sent a certain school of thought to which we are tied. 
I never did that and I never shall. Labels have never 
gone far with me in my twenty-five years' ministry. 
I want to know and knowledge can only come out of 
experience. In my early ministry I read freely the 
sermons of Spnrgeon, Talmage, Montefeltro and 
Franklin. Later I read Robertson, Beecher, South, 
Bossuet and others with the same freedom that I read 
Luther, Wesley and Henry, judging them all by 
the same standard and that standard was. Is it true 1 
And will it help ? 

I never cared much for fiction. "When a boy I read 
almost exclusively history and poetry. I treasured 
among the first books of my library the works of J. 
T. Headley. My father, however, was fond of fic- 
tion. Sometimes I would see him up later than 
usual, reading with interest some new book. I used 
to ask him in the morning about it and he would fre- 
quently say, ' ' Oh, it was just a little worthless novel 
that I was reading to rest my mind. I have been 
worried about "some matters and this diverted my at- 
tention.*' If the story was of much value, however, 
we would be sure to have it that night after supper. 
I always had some fondness for Dickens and some- 
times read after him now. Scott said some wonder- 
fully good things, but he appeared to me to take a 
long time to say them. I think my liking for him 
was largely that somewhere back in my father's line 



WITH BOOKS AND PERIODICALS 191 

of ancestry there was some intermarrying, so that 
Scott had the Ainslie coat of arms painted in the ceil- 
ing of his study along with all the other Scottish 
clans with which he had some connection. The great- 
est work in fiction that I ever read was Hugo's ^'Les 
Miserables. ' ' Modern fiction has impressed me as hav- 
ing in it too much of the superficial. Among the es- 
sayists I find much satisfaction in reading Emerson. 

I still read poetry and like to sit at the feet of the 
masters there as much as in paintings — such names 
as Tennyson, Shakespeare, Dante and others of all 
nations who were teachers with them, trying to speak 
to us in thoughts set to the music of their own souls. 
America has not been without her contribution in 
such souls as Lanier, Poe, Longfellow and Whittier. 
These hold the lesser lights, while the masters, who 
belong to all nations, pour forth their lofty songs. 
By the side of these I should give a place to both 
Ruskin and Hugo, for they have helped me in their 
distinctive fields, as has also Tolstoi — all three preach- 
ers of righteousness — unordained by men, but bearing 
in their bosoms that holier ordination of deep convic- 
tion for God and the living truth. I have given 
considerable time to the reading of devotional litera- 
ture. I have only touched this great field, however, 
the paths of which have been trodden by some of 
the Lord 's truest saints. Here dwells the mystic, who 
is the best interpreter of Grod, of all the souls that 
crowd into the library. I never tire of their com- 
pany. The prayer literature is itself a marvel, and 
a kind of sky-light through which souls look up to 
God, reaching back into the Old Testament, especially 



192 WORKING WITH GOD 

the Psalms; in the New Testament, especially the 
prayers of Jesus and Paul; from the second to the 
sixth centuries, especially Iren^us, Ambrose, Augus- 
tine, Basil, Chrysostom and Gregory; from the sev- 
enth to the fifteenth centuries, especially Bede, Al- 
cuinus, Anslem, Aquinas, Tauler, Thomas a Kempis, 
Savonarola, Luther and Melanchthon; from the six- 
teenth to the eighteenth centuries, especially Bishop 
Andrews, Francis Bacon, John Knox, George Her- 
bert, Isaac Barrow, Archbishop Fenelon, Sir Matthew 
Hale, Matthew Henry, Jeremy Taylor, Bishop Wil- 
son, Edward Bickersteth, Chalmers, Channing, 
Bishop Heber, Samuel Johnson, Henry Martyn and 
John Wesley; in the nineteenth and twentieth cen- 
turies, especially Henry Alford, Boyd Carpenter, 
Robert CoUyer, Canon Liddon, F. D. Maurice, Bishop 
Moule, E. B. Pusey, Christina G. Rossetti, Mary 
Tileston, Bishop Westcott, Rowland Williams and 
George Matheson. What a debt we owe to ' ' The Im- 
itation of Christ" by Thomas a Kempis, Pascal's 
' ' Thoughts ' ' and other books of that character ! 

There are many opportunities for reading. In 
the event of a trip on the train, whether for a few 
hours or several days, my seat is usually turned 
into a reading corner and sometimes with a table for 
writing. If in the afternoon the calls I am to make 
are scattered from one end of the city to the other, I 
usually take a book. Riding on the street car, I was 
intently reading, when a man, whom I did not know, 
touched me, saying, ''That must be a very inter- 
esting book from the way you are reading it." It 
was just about the location where I was to get off 



WITH BOOKS AND PERIODICALS 193 

and I said, ' ' Yes, it is. You take it, and if you find it 
worth while, keep it ; if otherwise, return it to my ad- 
dress on the first page." The circulating of a good 
book is time and money well spent and I have given 
away as many books as I have kept. ''Dr. Eliot's 
five-foot shelf of books," a good encyclopedia, an 
unabridged dictionary, a first-class daily paper, a 
weekly religious journal that covers the whole field 
of Christian activity, one monthly magazine of ar- 
ticles of the most modern thinking, and the Bible 
is a library that any preacher can revel in with un- 
limited profit. There is a great multiplicity of mag- 
azine literature, but one good magazine is enough. 
As a rule books are better reading than magazine 
articles. They are more thorough and better finished. 
But after all, no book must interfere with the 
reading of the Bible. It is the Book and there is 
none else besides. Reading books about the Bible 
frequently takes one away from the Bible itself. 
Then such books are hindrances rather than helps. 
To read the book of Isaiah through at one sitting, 
or certainly one of his sermons, is far more helpful 
than snatching a chapter here and there ; so of read- 
ing through any one of the New Testament epistles, 
as we read other letters, or one of the Gospels at a 
sitting. The whole New Testament can be read in 
a day. Other minds are mere candlelights by the 
side of the great Light that illumines the Scriptures. 
The mind of Christ is the Master mind of the world. 
All others are but pigmies by the side of His. Hence 
the exhortation of the Apostle, ^'Prea-ch the Word.^' 
On the publication of my book entitled ''Among the 



194 WORKING WITH GOD 

Gospels and the Acts," former President Grover 
Cleveland sent me the following letter : 

''Princeton, N. J., March 14, 1908. 
' * Eev. Peter Ainslie, 
Christian Temple, 
Baltimore, Md. 
' ' My deah Sir : — 

''I very much hope that in sending out this book 
you will do something to invite more attention among 
the masses of our people to the study of the New 
Testament and the Bible as a whole. It seems to me 
that in these days there is an unhappy falling off in 
our appreciation of the importance of this study. I 
do not believe as a people that we can afford to al- 
low our interest in, and veneration for, the Bible to 
abate. I look upon it as the source from which those 
who study it in spirit and in truth will derive 
strength of character, a realization of the duty of 
citizenship, and true apprehension of the power and 
wisdom and mercy of God. 

''Yours verv sincerelv, 

"Grover Cleveland." 

Books must not drive us away from people. They 
are better commentaries on the Bible than anything 
I ever found in a library — just people, plain every 
day people. Said Scott once to Lockhart, "I have 
read books enough, and observed and conversed with 
enough of eminent and splendidly cultivated minds, 
and I assure you I have heard higher sentiments from 
the lips of the poor, uneducated men and women, 
when exerting the spirit of severe yet gentle heroism 
under difficulties and afflictions, or speaking their 
simple thoughts as to the circumstances and lot of 



WITH BOOKS AND PERIODICALS 195 

their friends and neighbors, than I ever met with out- 
side the pages of the Bible." Books and periodicals 
must always hold secondary places. The greatness of 
the world is in men. Their books are but their 
shadows. We crave not fellowship with and service to 
the shadow, but that from which the shadow comes. 
Nothing could be better said of any man than that 
which is so finely said on the statue of Phillips 
Brooks as it stands beside Trinity Church in Boston, 
' ' The Preacher of the Word of God and the friend of 
man." 



The Interpreter of Life 



Jesus mercilessly denounced those who were 
devoid of sjTnpathy for their fellow men and I 
know not that He used the power of His invec- 
tives against any others. Correct doctrines are 
dead men's bones if they are not clothed with 
the flesh of human sympathy. The cold world 
suffers bitterly for the want of each other's love. 
Sympathy is the interpreter of life, for nothing 
can be understood apart from it, Man himself 
is an unsolved enigma without sympathy, a bun- 
dle of impossibilities; but, when sympathy awak- 
ens, it knows no bounds and respects neither 
prudence, partiality nor ceremony, but moves as 
quickly as thought. It is limited neither to the 
proximity of persons nor to their congeniality, 
but it reaches across oceans and continents and 
holds friendly intercourse with all races and 
classes. It is the universal solvent, capable of 
meeting all obligations and, in it« practice, it 
proclaims the brotherhood of mankind, — From 
My Brother And I. 



196 



XI 

Around the Court-House 



I have never had much business in court, but I have 
had some part in a good many cases that were on 
the way to the court-house. The only time that I was 
ever in court in my own interest was when I was six- 
teen years old. On one occasion I grew tired of the 
quiet of the farm and I asked my father to let me 
go to Fredericksburg, which was not very far away, 
in order to try my hand at selling Bibles. He con- 
sented and a few days after I was canvassing Fred- 
ericksburg from door to door with family Bibles, sell- 
ing them far more readily than I had ever dreamed. 
Years after I wondered what use the people made of 
their purchases, paying on the installment plan some- 
times as much as ten to fifteen dollars a copy, for 
of all useless things I know of there is nothing that 
so nearly approaches uselessness as one of those great 
family Bibles with gilt edges and heavy clasps, 
placed sacredly in the parlor, where nobody dare 
touch it. There it remains in all of its magnificence 
from generation to generation, holding the records of 
marriages, births and deaths, for which any other 
kind of book might have served as well and at far 
less cost. 

But one beautiful spring morning while I was 
canvassing, I saw a policeman observing me closely. 

197 



198 WORKING WITH GOD 

It did not occur to me, however, that he had any other 
motive than to purchase a family Bible, until he asked 
me if I had license to sell Bibles. I immediately pro- 
ceeded to tell him that in a recent decision of the Vir- 
ginia Court of Appeals, which I had accidentally 
seen a few days before leaving my home, it was de- 
cided that what the State did not tax, the city could 
not, and, since the State of Virginia did not tax the 
selling of Bibles, the city of Fredericksburg could not, 
so I was exempt. But that did not satisfy the burly 
policeman and he forthwith hurried me off to the 
court-house. Arrests were not very frequent in the 
quiet little town, so by the time we reached the court- 
house there was following us a multitude that crowded 
to the center of the street — a multitude of all ages 
and manj" colors, from white down through the many 
shades of mulatto to jet black, crowding in the court- 
room behind us. 

Standing at the bar, the policeman preferred the 
charge and the judge inquired what I had to say, at 
the same time kindly commenting on my youth. I 
gave the reason for my not applying for license, 
naming the case in point with the decision of the 
court, to which the judge attentively listened and 
then informed me that he had never heard of the 
case. Up to that time I was frightened, not know- 
ing what the policeman was going to do with me. 
Now I was puzzled. I had sufficient money in my 
pocket to pay the license, for it was only a few dol- 
lars, but I was unwilling to yield the point that I 
knew was right. After some while the Common- 
wealth's attorney was called, who remembered that 



AROUND THE COURT-HOUSE 199 

there was such a case, but he was not sure of the 
decision until he looked up the records. During this 
delay the judge spoke kindly to me, asking about 
the kind of Bibles I was selling and, while I was in 
the midst of explaining their merits with the hope of 
making a sale, the Commonwealth's attorney reap- 
peared, announcing that my statement was correct 
and I was free to sell without license to every man in 
Fredericksburg a copy of the Scriptures. The judge 
smiled, congratulated me on winning my case and 
bade me adieu ; the policeman, stepping back, appeared 
disappointed; while the multitude hurrahed and my 
sudden fame added greatly to my sales of family 
Bibles! 

After being in the ministry a few years, I found 
that one of the values of a man was in being a recon- 
ciler amid the sharp clashes that are far too common 
in our race, and yet are inevitable. I cannot recall 
having written any severe letters in defense of my- 
self, or at most not many, but I have written many 
severe letters in defense of others, pleading their 
cause, and I have spent many hours in my office and 
in the offices and homes of others in conferences, seek- 
ing the adjustment of legal cases, reconciling differ- 
ences between friends or checking divorce proceed- 
ings. Sometimes I have been remonstrated with by 
my friends that this is not my business, but every- 
thing is my business that has to do with the happiness 
of mankind, whether those I am dealing with are my 
friends or strangers, and in most cases of this char- 
acter I have dealt with the latter. 

One cold winter evening several girls from the 



200 WORKING WITH GOD 

Girls' Club of Seminary House came to my residence 
and asked permission to swear out a warrant for the 
arrest of a girl who had stolen five or six of the best 
dresses of several of the girls in the Club and had 
made her escape. It has always been the custom of 
the Club to receive no one without letters of recom- 
mendation, but this girl, having come late in the eve- 
ning, claiming to be from the country, had asked for 
only one night's lodging. There being a vacant room 
in the Club the request was granted. She paid her 
bill next day about noon and left. That evening when 
the girls returned from their places of employment 
the theft was discovered. They naturally were angry, 
but to avoid any publicity to them I called up the 
chief of detectives, telling him the case and asking 
for the location of the girl, rather than her arrest, 
in order that I might have some talk with her relat- 
ing to her conduct and the restoration of the stolen 
articles. 

Two days later the chief of detectives called me up, 
saying the girl had been lodged in jail. When I in- 
quired why such hasty action had been taken, he in- 
formed me that there were seventeen cases against 
her. It appeared that in her coming to the city to 
seek employment, she had fallen into the hands of a 
second-hand clothes dealer, who employed her to se- 
cure a night 's lodging in boarding houses and the day 
following to make her thefts, using two empty suit 
cases for the purpose. It was a regular system of 
thieving and the second-hand clothes dealer — a gray- 
haired old woman — was also lodged in jail. 

I immediately went to the jail and there met for 



AROUND THE COURT-HOUSE 201 

the first time this friendless girl, seventeen years old, 
strong and robust, but indifferent and incommunica- 
tive. My conversation with her was altogether un- 
satisfactory, but I was determined to save her if pos- 
sible. I went to see the state 's attorney and the judge 
before whom the case would come, and there with the 
chief of detectives and the superintendent of police 
matrons, we talked over the case, when the judge asked 
me what I wanted to do in the matter. I replied, 
** Whatever you say, only I want to save the girl." 

''Are you willing to go her bond for a thousand 
dollars?" he asked. 

''Yes." I answered. 

Then the girl was brought from the jail into our 
conference room. The judge with his usual dignity 
had her to be seated before him, reviewing her crime 
and reminding her what a prison sentence would 
mean, thereby seeking to draw from her some expres- 
sion of regret and hoping she would ask for leniency, 
but she was indifferent, if anything impudent, cer- 
tainly discourteous. The case looked hopeless. The 
odds were all against her, only her youth lent a dim 
possibility to her rescue. Then we had another pri- 
vate conference, with the advise that I was taking a 
great risk, but I contended that the girl had not had 
a chance. Then said the judge, 

"Are you still willing to go her bond?" 

To which I answered, ' ' Yes ; if I lose I will be do- 
ing what men do every day in their commercial invest- 
ments, but I believe she is worth giving a chance. ' ' 

The papers were drawn up and the name of the 
superintendent of police matrons was entered on the 



202 WORKING WITH GOD 

public records instead of my name, with the under- 
standing that I was responsible in case of anj^ de- 
fault. When informed of her parole she was as in- 
different as if she were going back to jail. I called 
up a family in my flock, telling them the case, and 
they agreed to take her in their home as a maid. Ac- 
companied by the superintendent of police matrons, 
I took the girl, then shivering in thinly clad garments 
on that cold winter day, to the home where she would 
be for the next twelve months. 

Things went fairly well until it developed that 
she had a lover from her childhood days in the coun- 
try, some little distance from the city. On the pre- 
text of wanting to see her mother, she asked permis- 
sion to make a visit to the country for several days. 
The family did not look with favor upon the request 
and I was called in the council. It was decided that 
while she could not go to the country there was no ob- 
jection to her lover's visiting her. An hour later I 
was called up to come at once to the home. The girl 
was raising a storm. The whole neighborhood was ex- 
cited. I heard her wailing before I reached the house 
and I have never heard such loud demonstrations on 
any occasion. The understanding with the judge and 
the state's attorney was that the first time she gave 
me any trouble I was to notify the court and send 
her back to jail for trial. She knew all this, but 
every understanding and all help went down before 
her boisterous wailing, until it was decided to send 
for a physician rather than a policeman. I advised 
him to give her something to make her sick without 
doing her any harm. He did this and she was in bed 



AROUND THE COURT-HOUSE 203 

for several days, more, however, from the result of 
her wailing than the medicine which was given her. 
But I had no further trouble with requests to visit the 
country. 

The parole expired and she got another place of 
employment. A year or so passed. I had not seen 
her in any of my church services. Amid the multi- 
tude of other duties I had quite forgotten the case, 
w^hen one Sunday evening in my church a number of 
people came to the front to confess their faith in 
Jesus Christ. Several were strangers and among them 
a girl whose glad face looked familiar, but I could 
not place her at first. Then I asked, "Isn't this Edna 
Hemstead?" She said, ''Yes, sir." I could hardly 
believe it. She appeared to have found herself and 
now was as different from the girl that I visited in 
the jail as though she were another person. Christ 
had exchanged gladness for repulsiveness in her 
countenance. Later she married her childhood lover 
and now they live with their little family on a farm 
that bordera on one of the railroads going out of 
Baltimore. 

A little help at a critical period has changed the 
current of many lives. It may cost time, care or 
money, or all of these, but our willingness to make 
the investment depends altogether upon whether to 
us the highest values are in human beings or in time, 
personal comfort and money. Christ saw that the 
highest values in this world were in human beings. 
Consequently He left us the Cross and the broken 
tomb, saying, ''Wlwsoever doth not hear liis own 
cross, and come after me, cannot he my disciple/' 



204 WORKING WITH GOD 

Helping eacli other is one of the great privileges of 
life, and especially helping those who have no helpers 
or whose helpers are few. 

One day a man came in my office and told me the 
sad story of his broken home. His wife had gotten a 
position down town, the children were with her rela- 
tives and he was boarding with his relatives. Do- 
mestic infelicity is a grave problem, approaching most 
closely to the gravest in human life, for when the 
home loses its place of confidence and affection there 
is not much left out of which to build either a nation 
or a church. When people get married they ought to 
go to themselves to live, if they have to live in one 
room. When a misunderstanding comes, the last peo- 
ple to be brought into it are the relatives, for as a 
rule the husband's relatives side with him and the 
wife's relatives side with her, necessarily widening 
the breach. So I have held it a sacred trust to take 
up the task of mending broken homes as opportunity 
offered itself. This man appeared to desire reconcilia- 
tion with his wife, but the difficulty was to change her 
feelings toward him. I called her up at her place of 
employment and, when I made known the purpose of 
my conversation, the quick reply came, ' ' It is none of 
your business whether I get a divorce or not. ' ' 

''In one sense that is true," I answered, ''for 
both of you are strangers to me, but in another sense 
it is my business because you are my sister and your 
husband is my brother. ' ' 

After further talk she consented to come to my 
office, where she laid bare all the shortcomings of her 
husband, to which I said no word of defense. The 



AROUND THE COURT-HOUSE 205 

time had not come for that. She must say all she had 
to say, yet nothing she had said furnished ground for 
divorce. They had had a quarrel. Eelatives and so- 
called friends had added fuel to the fire and the law- 
yers were hurrying the case to the court docket. I 
had further conversation with the husband and also 
further conversation with the wife. Then I pleaded 
his cause, her own cause and that of the children. 
She broke down in tears. 

''Will you meet him for a private conference and 
meet him alone?" I asked. 

Then with all the splendour of womanhood in her 
face she said in halting fashion, "I know it is right 
that I should, and I will." Some weeks passed and 
I was walking up the street one summer evening, 
when whom should I meet but this husband and his 
wife walking side by side with smiling faces, while 
their children were playing along in front of them. 
Lifting my hat and bowing as though I had never 
seen them in any other way, I passed on. The law- 
yers were disappointed and thought I had gotten into 
something that was none of my business, but I had 
''plucked tJie prey out of fheir teeth" and was happy 
in seeing that the Lord had united a broken home. 
This called for a little time, a little patience and a 
little sympathy — all elements to be used by us for the 
good of others. 

Some cases have been more difficult than others, 
but even the most difficult eases usually have in them 
the possibility of reconciliation, although sometimes 
I have failed absolutely. It was in the nineties and a 
well-dressed but somewhat dissipated looking man 



206 WORKING WITH GOD 

came to see me. After telling his story, he asked me 
to accompany him back to the Eutaw House and have 
a conference with his wife. We entered a handsome 
suite of rooms at the hotel and I took my seat to await 
the arrival of his wife. In a few -minutes she entered 
with her railroad ticket in her hand. He introduced 
me and I started to explain my presence. But she 
did not let me get very far when she informed me 
that I had come too late, for she had just bought her 
railroad ticket and would leave at twelve o'clock for 
her home in Pittsburgh. The husband started to 
speak, when with eyes flashing fire she said, ' ' Greorge 
Barton, take this clergyman out of my room and you 
go to the devil. ' ' I never learned where George went, 
but I left without further ceremony. 

The pain of discord is often severe. Differences 
will arise and wrongs will be committed against each 
other, while the sad faces of the multitudes reveal 
the weight of burdens and the sting of disappoint- 
ments in human life. It is well we cannot see people 
as they are. The pain of the human heart cries for 
a friend. We must try to be that if we would be 
anything in this world. 

I have often labored with men facing the prison, 
but I have not space to enter into a recital of their 
lives in this brief chapter. Sometimes when rescued 
they have gone back to their former crimes, but in 
most instances they have proved their repentance by 
correct living. Confidence in a man helps him to 
get on his feet as nothing else does. Forgeries, em- 
bezzlements and betrayed confidences are aggravating 
conditions. I have struggled with men guilty of them 



AROUND THE COURT-HOUSE 207 

all, but I have seen patience and leniency on the part 
of the wronged in many instances furnish the en- 
trance of Christ to build up broken characters. Pris- 
ons do not often solve the problem of the criminal. 
In the eyes of society it usually leaves the mark of 
his crime upon him. Paroling prisoners is far better 
for the cure of society's ills than iron bars. It ought 
usually to be done in minor offenses and certainly in 
the instance of the first minor offense. I recall on one 
occasion in seeking to get a criminal out of jail, one 
of the judges of the Supreme Bench said to me, ''If 
you are really willing to try to save him, the sooner 
you get him out of jail the better, for every five min- 
utes there makes him that much worse." The at- 
mosphere of the jail and the penitentiary is heavy 
and against his rise. Farms for criminals guilty of 
minor offenses are far better than stone walls. But 
the best thing of all is friendship for the offender. 
The man up against hard conditions needs a chance. 
Some men are led into crime more quickly than oth- 
ers, due frequently to ancestral lines. There must 
be a change of environment to give him a chance. 
We should not only be willing to give him that chance, 
but be willing to stand with him in the doorway as 
he seeks an entrance into life again. 

One of the deacons of the Temple, who is a city de- 
tective, had his house broken into one evening while 
he was at prayer-meeting with his family. In a few 
days the young man who did it was located and it was 
further discovered that he had broken into other 
houses, stealing in some instances several hundred 



208 WORKING WITH GOD 

dollars. The coui'se of the law was a prison sentence. 
He was the only son of respectable parents, who were 
heartbroken over their son's conduct. On learning 
that one of the homes broken into was the home of a 
detective, they felt sure that the severest punishment 
would be meted to him, but this deacon and his wife 
visited the parents, offering their sympathy and prom- 
ising if the young man would attempt to do right, 
they would be his friends. All the money was re- 
turned by the young man and the deacon became a 
big brother to him, getting him paroled in his care, 
upon which he started attending church regularly. 
The father, who never attended church, took his stand 
for Christ and is now a church official, while the 
young man became a Christian soon after his parole 
expired. It is easy to abuse those who go wrong, 
but the difficult and manly thing is to help those 
who fall. What is the use of the strong if it is not 
to help the weak? It is an opportunity for the in- 
vestment of faith, as financiers invest their money. 
The dividends of an invested faith, especially when 
others are dubious, furnish a priceless account be- 
neath the eyes of God. If it does not always pay, 
and sometimes it does not, its value, however, is 
in the large number of instances where it has paid. 
We must believe in people and be willing to trust 
them, even if sometimes to our own embarrassment 
our confidence is misplaced. There are promises in 
every soul that only faith in the person can bring 
to fulfilment, so that I may say to the one who has 
faith in me : 



AROUND THE COURT-HOUSE 209 



*' Because of your strong faith I kept the track, 

Whose sharp-set stones my strength had well-nigh spent, 
I could not meet your eyes if I turned back; 
So on I went. 

' ' Because you would not yield belief in me, 

The threatening crags that rose my way to bar, 
I conquered inch by crumbling inch — to see 
The goal afar. 

**And though I struggle towards it through hard years, 
Or flinch, or falter blindly, yet within, 
* You can ! ' unwavering my spirit hears ; 
And I shall win.*^ 



The Incarnation 



By the instrumentality of the Word all 
things were created, as by the Holy Spirit all 
things were beautified. Both were in the be- 
ginning- and later both came to the earth — Jesus 
to die for the sins of mankind and to be raised 
from the dead for their justification, and the 
Holy Spirit to convict the sinner and to sanctify 
the saint. The incarnation — the Word becoming 
human nature — is a theme mightier than His 
death or His resurrection, and is a maik of con- 
descending humility that passes human under- 
standing. No sublimer idea ever came to the 
human mind than God dwelling among men, 
pitching His tent among us, and it is a prophecy 
of the consummation when pain and death shall 
be no more and all men shall know Him, for He 
shall tabernacle with men, ' ' arid they shall he 
His peoples, and God Himself shall he with them, 
and be their God." — From Amo-ng the Gospels 
and the Acts. 



210 



XII 

Amid Services and Ceremonies 



The minister has many grave responsibilities to 
meet. No man deals with so many delicate and dif- 
ficult problems as he. In many instances he can follow 
the Scriptures or public opinion or his own judgment, 
depending upon the nature of the subject before him, 
but at no time can he afford to lose consciousness of 
the living presence of God. He is in a serious busi- 
ness. The greatest throne in the world is the pulpit. 
Whether it be the desk for the priest or the prophet, 
people gather around it. Horace Greeley said, ' ' When 
the pulpit is on fire, the multitudes will assemble to 
see it burn. " It is a pathetic fact that a human life 
must burn — sometimes burn out — ^before the heart of 
the multitude grows warm. It is the price, however, 
that one sometimes has to pay to bear the message of 
God to men. Back of every pulpit must be a sanctuary 
of prayer. I do not mean a room in a church build- 
ing, although that is very good — it may be beside the 
forest path, as with Livingstone, or on the sandy beach 
after sunset, as with Augustine, but it must be some- 
where, for it requires much prayer in order to preach. 

If I go out to an evening meal, taking part in a 
general conversation, I am rarely in a condition to 
preach that evening. I may be able to talk, but talk- 
ing is not always preaching. If the conversation is on 
spiritual lines without controversy, I am not so in- 

211 



212 WORKING WITH GOD 

capacitated for the task, but I can usually preach 
better if I have a full hour for meditation and study, 
immediately before going into the pulpit. Even then 
I often go away with a sense of dissatisfaction with 
the message I have given. On one occasion I was in- 
vited to make an address before a distinguished gath- 
ering in a western city. I made ample preparation 
before leaving Baltimore^ but spending five hours in 
a lively conversation up to the time I went on the 
platform so unfitted me for my task that from the 
first sentence to the last I was as a man beating the 
air, conscious at the time and ever since that my ad- 
dress was a wretched failure. 

The constant attendance of a certain gentleman 
on my preaching brought me to an equally embarras- 
sing experience. It was the year before I came to 
Baltimore. I had not been preaching very long. The 
Woman's Missionary Society of the Disciples in Vir- 
ginia employed me for the summer to visit the auxil- 
iary societies in the local churches throughout the 
state. I put all that I knew of the Woman's Mission- 
ary work into an address of twenty to thirty minutes, 
which I carefully wrote and memorized. Sunday 
morning I preached at Charlottesville. After the 
services as I descended from the pulpit, a well dressed 
elderly gentleman with white hair and beard cordially 
approached me and commended my remarks. This 
was quite satisfactory because I had some doubts as to 
whether I had gathered the proper material for the 
work I had started out to do. That afternoon at 
three o'clock I was to preach at Piedmont, which was 
some distance from the city. As I entered th:^ pul- 



AMID SERVICES AND CEREMONIES 218 

pit, I observed that this aged gentleman was sitting 
on the front pew. I was somewhat embarrassed, but 
I delivered the address. At the close of the services, 
he immediately approached me with most cordial 
commendation. That evening I was to preach at 
Gordonsville, still further on the railroad towards 
Richmond. When I went in the pulpit, who should I 
see sitting on the front pew but this same gentleman. 
In my embarrassment, I decided to rearrange my ma- 
terial so that my friend might not think that was the 
only address I had on that subject, which was true as 
a matter of fact, but in rearranging the material in 
my mind I got it so mixed that I forgot most of it 
and made a failure. I was so mortified that I wanted 
to leave the church without speaking to anyone, but 
the aged gentleman was the first to get hold of my 
hand and he spoke so kindly of what I had said that 
I was bewildered. I forthwith took one of the men of 
the church aside and asked the name of my aged 
friend, to which he innocently replied, ''That's Dr. 
Beal. He hasn't heard a sound for forty years, but 
he goes to church regularly and is very gracious in 
his manner." I have never been disturbed since by 
repeating sermons to the same audience or having 
people present who have heard them many times be- 
fore. There are some sermons that I have preached 
over nearly every year in my ministry. More fre- 
quently my regret is that since I am so constantly 
preaching I do not have the time to preserve more 
sermons. They are noted on scraps of paper, which 
I keep in my pocket. The paper is usually thrown 
away, but the sermon has been committed to the lives 



214 WORKING WITH GOD 

of those who heard it and I shall see it again in the 
day of Christ. Perhaps if I get the time after its de- 
livery, especially on Monday mornings, I may write 
out fuller notes for further use, but that time is 
rarely found, with the multitude of calls on me for 
other service. 

One of the most serious experiences in the life of 
a minister is his ordination vows. While I was de- 
livering a course of lectures in the School of Religion 
of Yale University, in 1913, one of the young men re- 
quested me to ordain him to the ministry. He bore 
letters from his church commending him for the min- 
istry and requesting his ordination. After talking 
over the matter a brief service was arranged in the 
chapel immediately following one of my lectures. The 
order was somewhat as follows: After a brief devo- 
tional period, the purpose of the meeting was stated, 
letters being read relative to the ordination of the 
young man. On his name being called, he arose 
from his seat on the front row and came to the plat- 
form. I then read to him Ephesians 4 :1-16 and com- 
mented on the text in the nature of a charge. Then 
he was asked the following questions : Do you reaf- 
firm your faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and 
Saviour? Do you affirm your determination to be a 
minister of Jesus Christ whatever difficulties may be 
in your pathway? Do you promise to study faith- 
fully the Scriptures for both your enlightenment and 
that of the people to whom you minister? Do you 
promise to be prayerful, patient and faithful in all 
matters, seeking earnestly for the Holy Spirit's 
leading of your life? Had I added. Do you promise 



AMID SERVICES AND CEREMONIES 215 

to be faithful to the Scriptures according to the in- 
terpretation of the people known as the Disciples'? 
or any of the canons, creeds or interpretations of any 
one of the communions — Roman Catholic or Protes- 
tant — the ordination would have been sectarian. I 
had no such ordination for myself, nor would I be a 
party in giving it to another. A promise to be loyal 
to any special interpretation or creedal pronounce- 
ment or distinct canon is sectarian. Loyalty to Christ 
alone is sufficient. When the questions were answered, 
Dean Charles R. Brown, a Congregationalist, offered 
the prayer with the laying on of hands, followed by 
the announcement of the ordination and the benedic- 
tion. Officers in the Temple have been ordained by a 
similar service with some slight verbal changes in the 
questions. The men for ordination have always been 
prepared by some definite course of study though it 
may be ever so brief. 

Both baptism and the Lord 's Supper call for most 
careful preparation. Some in other communions see 
in these ordinances a sacramental grace. For myself 
I believe there is more in them than most of us have 
seen. I would not put a limitation to any man's 
thought regarding either of these ordinances, or his 
reach after God. See in them what you please, so 
that they make you a better Christian in the practice 
of love, humility, denial of self, friendliness for others 
and all other elements of unworldliness. Should 
your thought paths into these ordinances, however, 
make you proud, self-righteous and exclusive, isolat- 
ing you from other Christians, then I would shun 
those interpretations as though they were plagues. 



216 WORKING WITH GOD 

Before coming for baptism, I advise every person to 
read the sixth chapter of Romans and spend some 
time in prayer. In the observance of the ordinance, 
the prayerful attitude of Jesns when He was baptized 
is emphasized with the assurance to each person being 
baptized that Christ is a witness to this transaction 
and His promise is that He will never forsake him. 
In the observance of the Lord's Supper the tendency 
is in many instances to shorten the services. In our 
observance of it at the Temple, we have lengthened 
the services. The human heart needs it for self- 
examination and prayer. 

On one occasion, in being the guest in the home of 
Sir Alexander E. Simpson, of Edinburgh, Scotland, 
he said, ''I have read with great interest your story 
of the Disciples because it is the church of which our 
great Commoner, the Honorable Lloj^d George, is a 
member. I like so many things about it, but I cannot 
understand how you leave out our little children. I 
must have my little children baptized." I replied, I 
don't think we leave them out. Sir Alexander. They 
are as much in the pale of salvation as Christ Him- 
self, for He said, ^'Except ye turn, and become as 
little cliildren, ye shall in no wise enter into the king- 
dom of lieaven." The only models that Jesus left for 
us grown people were Himself and little children; 
consequently a little child must be among the saved, 
yes, better than Peter, James or John, for He did 
not admonish us to live like any one of these. I like 
the custom of the dedication of children as it was 
practiced in the New Testament times. Jesus con- 
formed to this long established custom when He laid 




A GROUP OF WOMEN IN VARIOUS FORMS OF MISSIONARY 
AND SOCIAL WORK 

(1) My sister — Miss Etta R. Ainslie, died in 1904. (2) :\Iiss Edna 
P. Dale, missionary, Wuhn, China. (3) ]\Iiss Emma T. Thatcher, 
secretary the Temple. (4) ]Miss Louise Schultze. executive secretary 
Association for the Promotion of Christian Unity. (5) Miss Alice Grimm, 
president Girls' Club. (6) Miss Annie T. Smuck, missionary', superintend- 
ent Exeter Street Rescue Home. 



AMID SERVICES AND CEREMONIES 217 

His hands upon the little children and blessed them. 

I have used a very simple service for this which is 
as follows: After reading the two passages of Scrip- 
ture referring to this custom — ^Mark 10:13-16 and 
Matthew 18:1-6 — and a few remarks on the ancient 
custom with somewhat of a charge to the parents, the 
following question is asked the parents: Do you 
promise to instruct this child in the knowledge of God 
as contained in the Scriptures, praying with him 
and for him and bringing him up in the nurture and 
admonition of the Lord ? Then on being asked, What 
name is desired to be given this child, it is announced 

that the child is named , closing with a prayer, 

all joining in saying the Lord's Prayer, followed by 
the benediction. 

There is no word in our language sweeter than 
home. At its mention hearts vibrate in tender est 
sympathy. It is an oasis in life, or ought to be. 
Sometimes, as the day we expect to be clear becomes 
cloudy, so home, which is designed to be the purest and 
fairest spot on earth, becomes the most hateful den. 
All its rightful magnificence is torn into shreds and 
its sweetness turns into nightshade. A quarrel hurries 
through a half-cooked breakfast and two sour per- 
sons enter into the day's task, half doing their work 
and half living their lives, with a lesson to their chil- 
dren which they can never forget. It ought not to 
be so. God wishes it otherwise. No place is so sacred 
as home. The husband, annoyed all day with business 
cares, reaches home, where his burdens are lightened 
and love is law. For a while he forgets the day with 
its irritations, for home with its rightful happiness 



218 WORKING WITH GOD 

takes possession of the mind and heart as the morn- 
ing light creeps in upon the darkness, turning it into 
day. It may be an humble home, but a wife 's industry 
and care has made it an attractive home. It is the 
place of ten thousand sacrifices. Eeligion cleans the 
house, for it begins with cleansing the hearts of those 
who live in the house. Each day will be sanctified by 
prayer and human conduct is regulated by the living 
Spirit of God. Without it the house is unroofed, the 
doors are unlocked and the hearts are empty, but it 
is prayer that sets sentinels at the doors, that keeps 
the light burning in the heart and that throws the 
canopy of God's providence over the place where fa- 
ther, mother and children dwell. 

Marriage is the vestibule to the home. It is a life 
time covenant, instituted by God, regulated by His 
commandments, blessed by our Lord Jesus Christ and 
to be held in honor among all. If Divine guidance is 
needed in anything it ought to be in this, particularly 
since many men and women make love in Sunday 
clothes and do not change them until several weeks 
after marriage. The precincts of wedlock are too 
sacred to be trodden by hasty feet. An unsanctified 
marriage brings more unhappiness into the home than 
many deaths. It is not money nor beauty nor posi- 
tion nor anything else under the sun, but the happy 
marriage is found only in honest love of congenial 
hearts. Beauty, money, position and whatever else 
are only the garments, while character is that which 
will shine when the individual is bereft of the gar- 
ments. There are thousands of happy marriages, 
where life is intensified in beauty and holiness, when 



AMID SERVICES AND CEREMONIES 219 

two lives become one, as two rivers that flow down 
one channel to the great deep sea. 

Perhaps in the course of a year I refuse to per- 
form the marriage ceremony of as many couples as 
I marry. I will not knowingly marry a run away 
couple, under age, and if I have the slightest suspi- 
cion, I do not hesitate to ask regarding these matters 
before performing the ceremony. It is not appro- 
priate for ministers to have part in clandestine mar- 
riages. But the more awkward question is that deal- 
ing with divorce. There is a divorce for every ten 
marriages in the United States and in some sections 
of the country the proportion is still greater. I know 
it is said that the minister is a servant of the law and 
consequently has no more personal responsibility in 
the matter than a sheriff in executing the orders of 
the court, but I do not believe that the cases are 
parallel. A man once called on me to marry him, 
informing me that the woman whom he was going 
to marry had been divorced. I informed him that I 
could not perform the ceremony. Whether he mis- 
understood me or intended to force me to do it, I do 
not know, but a few hours later he called with the 
woman, handing me the license, and informed me that 
they were ready for the ceremony. When I reminded 
him what I had told him a few hours before, he said, 
''You have no authority in the matter. You are the 
servant of the State. The State has granted us the 
license and you have got to marry us." I forthwith 
reminded him that I was a servant of the State, but I 
was also a judge of the laws of the State and my jj dg'- 
ment was adverse to the granting of the license. I 



220 WORKING WITH GOD 

felt very keenly for the woman and expressed my 
deepest regret that they had come to me, but I must 
try to correct the abuses of divorce, irrespective of 
the feelings of others. 

Jesus taught that there was one offense which made 
divorce permissible. There may be many causes for 
separation, because of the hardness of the human 
heart, but remarrying ought to be so arranged that 
inasmuch as the State breaks the marriage covenant, 
the State should provide magistrates and other officers 
of the State to perform the ceremony of those* who 
have been divorced for incompatibility of temper and 
such like causes, and not force the Church to do that 
which is not in keeping with the teachings of Christ. 
I recognize of course that divorce is only the outward 
expression of the decaying foundations of the home; 
consequently the causes are deeper than divorce. They 
are in the unsanctified admosphere of the American 
home life, which can only right itself by the regen- 
erating grace of Jesus Christ. The misuse of mar- 
riage is as serious a problem as divorce. Said Bernard 
Vaughan, *'It is impossible for Christians, in any 
walk of life, to pretend they can persuade themselves 
that when once they become married, they may, with 
impunity, thwart God's designs in them by the il- 
licit exercise of certain rites, or by the illicit employ- 
ment of certain devices. How long will persons, who 
resort to such practices as fling defiance at the face 
of God, remain faithful to each other without His 
grace, which they have ceaselessly tossed aside, I 
know not ; but what I do know is this, that when once 
they have taken their lives into their own hands, them- 



AMID SERVICES AND CEREMONIES 221 

selves determining the conditions on which they will 
bear the burden of the married state, they will not 
then be long in discovering that there is no longer any 
supernatural motive for their going to church. Nay, 
more, they will want to turn their backs upon the 
place which can only serve to remind them of pledges 
broken, and of lives defiled. ' ' In saying all this I am 
hinting at perhaps the most vital problem in Ameri- 
can life to-day, for when the foundations of the home 
crumble, there is nothing left upon which to build 
either a nation or a church. In the marriage ceremony 
I use eithet the Episcopal or the Presbyterian service, 
with preference for the latter because it is more 
modernly worded. 

Funerals are the hardest places where ministers 
stand. Moved by sympathy for those in sorrow, they 
sometimes deny their whole ministry. In my first 
year in Baltimore I was asked to conduct a funeral by 
one of the most trusty men of my church. The man who 
had died was his brother-in-law and I was earnestly 
assured that he was a devout Christian. Never doubt- 
ing my task, I referred to his beautiful Christian life 
in my remarks, when I observed some commotion 
among the people, especially near the widow and 
children. I did not know the meaning of this, how- 
ever, until 1 went to the front, waiting for the casket 
to be brought out, when a woman in a handsome car- 
riage beckoned me to come to her. I went and she 
told me the man was her husband on the principle of 
affinity, and although they had never been legally 
married, she had been his wife for twenty years, re- 
ferring discourteously to the real wife and children. 



222 WORKING WITH GOD 

When I got in the carriage going to the cemetery, I 
was qnickly informed of my blunder by the other 
occupants of the carriage, with some sarcastic in- 
quiries as to my ideas of morality. I listened to the 
story with shame and indignation, wondering not 
only in this case, but in others, why women take other 
women's husbands and why men take other men's 
wives. .1 was greatly mortified over what I had done. 
The brother-in-law came to my home from the fu- 
neral, telling me how they had tried to hide the scan- 
dal and apologized for being untrue to me, but I had 
conducted the funeral and it would be impossible to 
undo what I had done, save in a very general way. 

But it was worth something to me. There are few 
times that the minister need say much about the dead. 
A funeral is an occasion to talk of Christ and- bear 
Christian comfort to the living. I have often said to 
my friends that at my own funeral I want the hymn 
''Jesus Lover of My Soul" sung, the fifteenth chap- 
ter of First Corinthians read, a prayer of thanks- 
giving for what Christ is to the world, and the ben- 
ediction. Let the sorrow of my friends be the trib- 
ute of their affection, which is far more beautiful 
than words. My own practice is after this order, with 
the exception that I do not often have a hymn. Fol- 
lowing the reading, I make a few remarks on the 
resurrection, the substance of which I use at all fu- 
nerals, something like the following, which was used 
at the funeral of a worthy Christian man as I write 
this chapter : 

Whatever loneliness death may cause to those who 
grieve, Christ is the Friend. He gave Himself for the 



AMID SERVICES AND CEREMONIES 223 

healing of all sorrow. His strong life is more than a 
fadeless star in a distant sky. He is a living Spirit, 
struggling to speak to our hearts more anxiously than 
we struggle to speak with Him. Long ago He died, 
but He arose from the dead, saying to all those who 
believe on Him, '^Because I live, ye shall live also." 

He is declared to be the first fruits of them that 
slept. There could be no first fruits unless there are 
second fruits. Of that time, the Apostle Paul says, 
"The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven, with a 
shout, with the voice of the arcliangel, and with the 
trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first; 
then we that are alive, that are left'' — we believers — 
"shall together with them he caught up in the clouds, 
to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever he 
with the Lord." His resurrection was to be three 
days after His burial ; our resurrection will be when 
He comes back, and of that day no one knows the hour 
except the Father. 

But you are asking. Where does the spirit go on 
the exit of a good man from the world ? And what is 
the value of the resurrection day? 

The spirit goes to be with Christ and I rest this 
upon two very clear passages of Scripture. Paul 
said, "To he absent from the hody and to he at home 
with the Lord." And again, "Having the desire to 
depart and he with Christ; for it is very far hetter." 
These spirits were clothed with humanity here. At 
death they pass to be with Christ, which is a joyous 
time on the other side of this scene. 

On the resurrection morning, the graves shall be 
opened and from these physical bodies shall come 
spiritual bodies, clothing the spirits in their heavenly 
relationship, as they were clothed with humanity in 
their earthly relationship. God has given many anal- 
ogous instances in nature to confirm this hope. 
The Apostle refers to the grain of corn dropped in 
the soil. The grain will not come up. Nobody wants 



224 WORKING WITH GOD 

that little hard seed to find its way to the surface, 
because we are looking for it to sprout and bear grain. 
This is so commonplace that we would be disap- 
pointed if it were otherwise. The grain decays and 
goes back to the dust, but out of it arises a green 
shoot, clothing the life of the corn in its new rela- 
tionship. The brown, rusty tulip bulb is buried and 
on its resurrection day it comes forth green, and a 
few days after it is crowned with a beautiful blossom. 
These are God 's illustrations, reminding us that if the 
seeds and bulbs are so cared for in their burial and 
resurrection, how much more will He care for us, who 
have been redeemed by His only begotten Son ? 

This is an occasion for us not only to strike the 
note of comfort, but of joy as well, in our hope of the 
resurrection from the dead. The Apostle reminds us 
that the order is first the physical and then the 
spiritual. We are now in the physical. Let us make 
sure that we shall share in the spiritual by such fel- 
lowship with Christ, being comforted in the assur- 
ance that '^Tke Lord knowetJi fhem tJiat are His.** 
It was this personal fellowship of our friend with 
Christ that gives an abundance of comfort and hope 
in this hour of sorrow. 

Nothing can ever take the place of the Scriptures 
as the source from which we get our faith, comfort, 
hope, courage and correct ideas of our relations with 
God and our fellows. The problems of intemperance, 
poverty, ignorance, social injustice, partisanship, war, 
and all those expressions of wickedness that take 
away the ^dsion of the people and deaden their hearts 
to spiritual influences, are evils to be combated with 
the heroism of martyrs until righteousness shall ex- 
press itself in terms of living faith and abiding love. 
The present has its tasks, which we must meet cour- 



^ AMID SER\^CES AND CKREMONIES 225 

ageously and patiently, for our fathers longed for 
this day, with their dreams of less difficult problems 
to solve. Perhaps they are harder. Jean Paul is 
keenly observant in his exhortation, ''Make not the 
present a mere means of thy future; for the future 
is nothing but a coming present; and the present, 
which thou despisest, was once a future, which thou 
desiredst. ' ' 



A Prayer 



To Thee, O God, belongs the title Redeemer, 
for Thou didst establish the way of redemption 
and hast taught me that to sanctify myself and 
to practice holiness are the purposes of all Thy 
types and shadows. Out of Thy law has come 
Thy love and amid the smoking sacrifices of bulls 
and goats has stood Thy Lamb that hath taken 
away my sin. While Thou hast not given me 
sight to see Thyself nor Thy glory, Thou hast 
shown me patterns of things in heaven and I am 
beginning to understand that all worshippers are 
priests and all prayers are incense and that the 
living sacrifice of myself is the climax of my 
worship. Thou didst first hallow the seventh 
day; then Thou didst hallow other days; now 
Thou hast hallowed all days — ^myself, my time, 
all are Thine, and out of the service shall come 
Thy likeness wrought by Thee and me in the se- 
cret of my trials, sufferings and triumphs. Amen. 
From Studies in the Old Testament. 



226 



XIII 
Observing a Day for Rest and Worship 



In the summer of 1911 F. D. Power, of Washing- 
ton, a man of rare spirit and marked accomplishments, 
died and shortly after I was selected to succeed him 
as chairman of the Commission on Sunday Observ- 
ance of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ 
in America. On one occasion, when a small boy, I 
was severely rebuked by our old negro cook, '^Aunt 
Eve," for sharpening my knife on a grindstone on 
Sunday and was forthwith taken to my mother for 
some kind of chastisement, the nature of which I have 
forgotten if there were any chastisement of any kind. 
Years passed before I was under a similar rebuke. 
This time the issue was on the advisability of having 
music in the parks of the city on Sunday afternoons. 
Most of the ministers opposed it; I favored it; and 
several scribes forthwith named me among those who 
favored the desecration of Sunday. It did not so ap- 
pear to me, however, and consequently I have been 
glad to see the crowds in the parks to hear the music 
on Sunday afternoons. I also like to see children in 
the freedom of play every day and especially on Sun- 
day after they have attended to their period of wor- 
ship ; but grown up people ought to use this day for 
rest from th^ir labors through the week by such 
recreation as will be helpful and for the worship of 

227 



228 WORKING WITH GOD 

God, that their spiritual lives may be refreshed. It 
is the misuse of the seventh day of the week which 
hurts man. Jesus said, "TJie SahhatJi was made for 
man." Man, and not the day, is the issue. The first 
thought of Jesus was always concerned with man and 
his welfare. 

So to that end the Commission on Sunday Observ- 
ance has sought to guard man's welfare, not so much 
by legislation as by giving counsel relative to a day 
for rest and worship, and urging its proper observ- 
ance. On the occasion of my first meeting with the 
commission, I sought to have all the views held by 
Protestant Christianity, which are represented in the 
Federal Council, to be represented in the commission 
ranging from the Seventh Day Baptists, which hold 
to the seventh day theory, and that to be observed 
without force of law, to the Lord's Day Alliance, 
which insists upon legislative enactments for the pres- 
ervation of the sanctity of the first day. I thought it 
would be better to have these differences adjusted as 
far as possible in the meeting of the commission, 
rather than on the fioor of the quadrennial session of 
the Council, which was the experience of the first 
meeting of the Council in Philadelphia in 1908. 
Sometimes we had some difficulty in making these 
adjustments, the extreme positions on neither side 
getting such recommendations as any one would have 
framed had he been alone in his own circle, but the 
commission was always able to go far enough with 
considerable degree of unanimity in its general state- 
ments, as shown by the recommendations in the 



OBSERVING A DAY FOR REST AND WORSHIP 229 

Quadrennial Council meeting at Chicago in 1912 and 
at St. Louis in 1916,* A. E. Main, of the Seventh Day 
Baptists, going so far as to support the commission's 
recommendations of 1912, which included the phrase 
"preferably on Sunday" in recognition of the large 
majority of the members of the Federal Council ob- 
serving that day. 

The observance of one day in seven for worship is 
one of the most vital problems in the social life of 
the nation. In Israel's keeping the Sabbath, it was a 
declaration of their acceptance of God's covenant and 
their reliance upon His promises. The same is no 
less true with us in our keeping the first day of the 
week with the message of the resurrection. There are 
more than four million wage earners in the United 
States, who toil every Sunday in the year, besides a 



*At the quadrennial meeting of the Federal Council of the 
Churches of Christ in America, held at Chicago, 1912, the Commission 
on Sunday Observance presented the following recommendations, which 
were adopted: 

1. "That we reaffirm our convictions as to the physical, moral and 
religious necessity of a weekly day of rest and worship; and our be- 
lief in its vital relation to individual, social and civic righteousness; 
and we unreservedly press this principle upon the minds and hearts of 
our fellow-citizens everywhere and urge the greatest possible coopera- 
tion of employers, of ministers, of editors, of teachers, and of parents 
to this end. 

2. "That all Christians shall seek to do their utmost in the ob- 
servance of this day by themselves abstaining from anything that fla- 
vors of desecration, such as sports, travel and buying, and urge upon 
the government and employers the need of rest for the laboring man. 
This day has been taken from him and the Church can in no better 
way prove its interest in him than by untiringly seeking to restore 
to the laboring man his day of rest. 

3. "That we not only endorse a half holiday of one of the six 
days of the week for physical rest, preferably Saturday, as tending to 
give better observance to Sunday, but for the higher sake of the op- 
portunity for the largest possible self-culture, we hope the time may 
come when hand and brain toilers shall have for their own use both 
Saturday and Sunday, one being a day of social recreation and the 
other a day of worship. We further desire to discourage the common 
practice of placing the same burdens upon students in our universi- 
ties on Saturday and Monday as on other days, so as to give larger 
opportunities for Sunday worship. 

4. "That all ministers be requested to preach on this subject dur- 
ing Lord's Day week, which includes the two Lord's Days after 



230 WORKING ^VITH GOD 

great number who are compelled to work on Sunday. 
By excursions and automobiles the holy day is turned 
into a holiday, besides other methods of desecration 
by pleasures and sports to such an extent as to take 
all the significance of worship out of this day. Per- 
haps never in the history of the American Republic 
have the attacks on the observance of Sunday been so 
severe as in recent years. The Christian conscience 
is pledged to the upholding of the integrity of one 
day in seven for man's welfare and it refuses to yield 
to the clamor of unwisdom for its abolition. It was 
recently said in one of the Federal court decisions: 
"Laws setting aside Sunday as a day of rest are up- 
held not from any right of the Government to legis- 
late for the promotion of religious observance, but 



Easter and which has been done in some sections of this country dur- 
ing the last thirty-seven years. It has been stated that 20,000 sermons 
were preached in England alone on Lord's Day Sunday, relative to 
the observance of this day. 

5. "That we earnestly urge cooperation with all Lord's Day asso- 
ciations that are in accord with these utterances, and also urge, if not 
union, a close cooperation of all associations working to this end. 

6. "That we favor the legislative protection, whenever needed, of 
every person in the right to rest and worship one day in seven, pref- 
erably on Sunday, and we earnestly recommend to State and local 
Federation of Churches the importance of not only guarding against 
the repeal or weakening of the laws we now have providing for Sun- 
day rest, but of placing on our statute books laws securing one day 
in seven as a rest day for all classes of working men and the secur- 
ing to every community a more complete protection of the forces that 
make for virtue and righteousness." 

The recommendations at St. Louis, 1916, were as follows: 

1. "That, affirming our protest as to the present conditions of 
society, which demand of 4.000,000 of our people to work continu- 
ously throughout seven days in every week, we pledge our support 
to all measures looking toward the provision of one day of rest in 
seven for brain- and hand-toilers. 

2. "That, deploring the neglect of public worship on the part of 
many Christians, we urge that all believers of Jesus Christ shall be- 
stir themselves by giving more attention to public worship and spiritual 
culture. 

3. "That, since some large manufacturing industries have estab- 
lished the practice of not working their employees more than six con- 
secutive days in the week because of efficiency, we urge upon all in- 
dustries a rest period for their employees of one day in seven, prefer- 
ably Sunday. 



OBSERVING A DAY FOR REST AND WORSHIP 231 

from its right to protect all persons from physical and 
moral debasement, which comes from uninterrupted 
labor. Such laws have always been deemed beneficent 
and merciful laws, especially to the poor and de- 
pendent, to the laborers in our factories and work- 
shops and in the heated rooms of our cities ; and their 
validity has been sustained by the highest courts in 
the United States." 

I believe it to be to the advantage of the people to 
open the parks, museums and libraries on Sunday. 
The Sunday League movement of London established 
as far back as 1875 favored this and it has many ad- 
vantages. Give the people a normal freedom and 
urge the place of God in human life. I like it bet- 
ter than Constantine 's method of summoning the 



4. "That, since the Federal Government has provided for a rest of 
one day in seven for its employees in some departments, we urge that 
this be extended to all departments, giving all employees one day of 
rest in seven, preferably Sunday. 

5. "That we endorse a general half holiday on Saturday as tend- 
ing to a better observance of Sunday. 

6. "That, because of the desecration of Sunday, we request all 
ministers to preach on the proper observance of the Lord's Day and 
Sunday-school teachers and parents to emphasize its importance. 

7. "That we most strongly protest against the operation of motion 
picture houses on the Lord's Day and urge our public officials to en- 
force the laws against this indefensible Sunday business, which is a 
serious menace to the true spirit of the Lord's Day, to our Sunday 
schools and public worship. 

8. "That, while we concede the right of all who conscientiously 
choose to do so to observe the seventh day of the week as a day of 
worship, yet, believing as we do that the growth and permanency of 
our civil and religious institutions demand the legal sanction and pro- 
tection of one day as the Christian Sabbath, and believing that, speak- 
ing for the great majority of American Christians, the first day of the 
week has divine sanction and approval and further, in view of the 
fact that the Supreme Court of the United States has given its ap- 
proval to Sunday laws as a part of the common law of the land; there- 
fore, we pledge ourselves to seek the enactment and enforcement of 
both state and federal laws for the preservation of the Christian 
Sabbath. 

9. "That, since exhortation is inefficient without practice, we our- 
selves should seek to maintain a standard of the observance of the 
Lord's Day that shall be in conformity with the strong and compelling 
spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ, making our standard a bulwark against 
the rising tide of desecration." 



232 WORKING WITH GOD 

police, or Charlemagne's example of having the 
legislature to enact stringent laws, for neither of these 
methods go to the heart of the condition. They only 
touch the external. Men are still irreverent and un- 
worshipful regarding this day. The Church has a 
task here and those who claim to follow Christ must 
prove it to the community by the proper observance 
of this day. The conscience of the believer must re- 
spond to the call of Gbd until he learns how to inter- 
pret the sanctity of this day in terms of spiritual cul- 
ture for himself and equal regard as far as possible 
for his brother's welfare. 

Great principles are as definitely marked in our 
lives as dates in our calendars. Prayer, marriage, and 
the observance of one day in seven for cultivating the 
soul's powers are fundamental principles in human 
life. You can desecrate prayer by insincerity or abol- 
ish it altogether, as some have done. You can dese- 
crate marriage by ceasing to bear with each other's 
weaknesses or abolish it by divorce, as many do in 
these days. You can desecrate Sunday by making it 
other than a time for the improvement of character or 
abolish it in using it for labor and sports, as some are 
seeking to do. All these things many may do, but no 
kind of desecration or abolition can absolutely take 
out of human life prayer, marriage and the sacred 
day. Those people and nations that are attempting 
it have in them the seeds of decay and sooner or later 
they will degenerate into ruin. 

There must be a time for the improvement of char- 
acter and for rest of the body and the brain. Long 
before Moses received the law on Mount Sinai such a 



OBSERVING A DAY FOR REST AND WORSHIP 233 

day was marked in the calendar of Babylon and per- 
haps in India. In the days of the lunar religion, 
nomads and shepherds sacredly counted the four 
phases of the moon and to them it appeared to stand 
still on the seventh day, which was a day considered 
tabu. There was a revival of this idea among the 
Assyro-Babylonians, while among the classical writers 
both Homer and Hesiod held the sabbath day sacred 
for the quest of the knowledge of truth. What others 
groped after in the dark the Jews received in their 
sacred oracles, and therefore it was to them as 
though it were written with the fire-tipped finger of 
Jehovah upon the dark blue scroll of the midnight 
sky, when it was said, ''Remember the sahhatJi day, to 
keep it Jioly. Six days shalt tJiou labor, and do all tJiy 
work; but the seventh day is a sabbath unto Jehovah 
thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor 
thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy 
maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is 
within thy gates; for in six days Jehovah made heaven 
and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested 
the seventh day: wherefore Jehovah blessed the sab- 
bath day, and hallowed it." 

All manner of absurd traditions accumulated 
around it, but the seventh day had a place in the Old 
Testament Scriptures superior to all other days. 
When it was desecrated, prophets came forth with 
their fiery appeals, denouncing the offenders and ex- 
horting fidelity in the keeping of this day. The voice 
of Amos was heard in Israel and that of Jeremiah in 
Judah, preceding their captivities, while later Ezekiel 
was heard among the captives in Babylon. Years be- 



234 WORKING WITH GOD 

fore Isaiah had declared that Jerusalem's safety was 
conditioned on abandoning the desecration of this day 
by secular pursuits and making its proper observ- 
ance a delight. 

Of all the numerals, the number seven bore the 
crown of preeminence and was lifted highest when it 
marked this day. The Old Testament opens with it — 
''God hlessed the seventh day and liallowed if — and 
with significance the number seven is mentioned there- 
after more than five hundred and fifty times, closing 
in the last book of the New Testament with magnifi- 
cent imagery expressed under the terms seven 
churches, seven spirits, seven golden candlesticks, 
seven stars, seven lamps, seven seals, seven horns, 
seven eyes, seven trumpets, seven thunders, seven 
heads, seven crowns, seven mountains, seven kings, 
seven angels, seven golden vials and seven plagues, 
marking the close with a gorgeous collection of pre- 
cious stones of which the chrysolite is the seventh — its 
transparent olive-green being emblematic of immor- 
tality. 

This day is as non-sectarian as prayer. The Jews 
had no more exclusive right to it than they had to the 
air of Asia ; neither did the Assyro-Babylonians, nor 
the classic writers of Greece. It belonged to all man- 
kind then and it belongs to all mankind now. It does 
not belong to the Christian over the Moslem or the 
Buddhist. No denomination in Christendom can put 
upon it ecclesiastical shackles, else succeeding ages 
will laugh as we now do at Xerxes when in a rage he 
tried to shackle the waves of the Hellespont with 
handcuffs and chains. It may be said of it as Jesus 



OBSERVING A DAY FOR REST AND WORSHIP 235 

said of the sun and the rain: *^He maketJi His sun 
to rise on tJie evU and the good, and sendetk rain on 
the just and the unjust.'' A day of rest belongs to 
the bad as well as the good, to the unbeliever as well 
as the believer, to the man who desecrates it as well 
as to the man who keeps it holy. It belongs to all 
mankind — recognized as^ a necessity in the beginning, 
recognized as a necessity now and recognized as a 
necessity as long as men live on the earth. 

Under the Jewish ideal it was not only to be a 
day of cessation of labor for the heads of families, but 
likewise for children, for servants, including all em- 
ployees, and for strangers who were foreigners with 
all kinds of ethical standards. Even the dumb animals 
were included. Whatever people may think of this 
fourth commandment of the Decalogue, its compre- 
hensiveness in mercy and kindness to all indicates that 
it bore the breath of the all wise Creator and Father. 
Perpetual toil is unhealthy and unwise. There must 
be a time of rest for man and beast. Although 
Thomas A. Edison appears to have little interest in 
an eternal rest, he does believe in the necessity of a 
weekly rest for business interest. In the making of 
Portland cement he has demonstrated that a period of 
gradual cooling of the kilns from six o 'clock on Satur- 
day evening until seven o'clock on Monday morning 
is best for the linings and has directed that the in- 
terval be made, thereby giving the workman a full rest 
day. From human economy, from tradition, from the 
Scriptures and from science is the one unanimous wit- 
ness that one day of rest in seven is a necessity in the 
life of all peoples. But it must ever be kept in mind 



236 WORKING WITH GOD 

that there is a wide distinction between the use of 
the day as a day of rest and as a day of worship. The 
first must be the concern of all the people whether 
they are Christians or not. We must be interested in 
one day of rest in seven from a humanitarian point 
of view and prove ourselves brothers of all men in 
helping to secure it and pass laws for its protection. 
The second is especially the concern of the Church, 
having to do with our ideals as the best way to realize 
the Christian conception of worship. The State can- 
not make laws for our worship, but we must keep 
Sunday as a sacred day for our spiritual worship by 
the law of conscience under the rule of the Spirit of 
Christ. 

With the rise of Christianity came the observance 
of the first day of the week with a significance distinct 
from that of the Jewish Sabbath. At first the Jewish 
Christians continued their observance of the seventh 
day along with their general adherence to the Jewish 
Law. The Gentile Christians, however, not feeling 
any obligations to the Jewish Law, leaned more to the 
observance of the first day of the week because it 
marked the resurrection of the Saviour of the world. 
It was true that Jesus and His disciples had kept the 
seventh day in strict obedience to the Old Testament 
Law, but with the establishment of Christianity new 
conditions arose. The Church of Christ was com- 
posed of both Jews and Gentiles and His Lordship 
gave Him preeminence over all former institutions 
and covenants. 

While it is certain that the Jewish observance of 
the Sabbath Avas a definite influence on the mind of 



OBSERVING A DAY FOR REST AND WORSHIP 237 

the early Church, the ideas associated with the Jewish 
Sabbath were not transferred to the first day. In 
writing to the Galatians, Paul protested against this 
transfer, regarding the return to it as taking up 
again ^^tJie weak and beggarly rudiments." To the 
Oolossians, he urged that one's piety should not be 
judged *^in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a feast 
day or a new moon or a sahhatli day,'' sweeping the 
whole scale of Jewish observances. The first day was 
not so much considered by them as a rest day — ^be- 
cause Jehovah rested on the seventh and not on the 
first day — but rather as a day of joyful remembrance 
of the resurrection of Christ in gathering for wor- 
ship, preaching and observing the Lord's Supper, Con- 
sequently for some time both days were observed in 
the Church — the seventh as a memorial of Creation 
and the first in memory of the Eesurrection. 

But each decade increased the tendency of the 
preeminence of the first day until we find in the 
epistle of Barnabas it is spoken of as the ''true day," 
and for the first time in Christian literature Justin 
Martyr used the term "Sunday," accommodating 
himself to the Roman calendar, and at the same time 
emphasizing that physical light was created on the 
first day and "the Light of the world" arose from 
the dead on that day. And so with the accumulation 
of several centuries of prestige, it was easy for Con- 
stantine, on March 7, 321, to issue his famous edict, 
making Sunday the legal holiday throughout the 
Roman Empire. While his motives were purely politi- 
cal, the motives of the Christians in observing this day 
through the previous centuries centered around the 



238 WORKING WITH GOD 

resurrection of Christ, giving to it a joyful sanctity. 
Augustine said, ' ' Sabbath means rest ; Sunday means 
resurrection." And Grregory the Great said, "Our 
true Sabbath is the Lord Jesus Himself." 

In no instance did the early Christian writers re- 
gard the Christian Sunday as a continuation of the 
Jewish Sabbath, but they constantly kept the distinc- 
tion between the days clearly marked, emphasizing the 
difference and contending with Paul that the Eesur- 
rection abrogated the old dispensation and the Law. 
While not recognizing the legal features of the Jew- 
ish Sabbath, they did, of course, recognize its moral 
principles, which antedated Jewish Law, which were 
contained in that law and which are now and ever 
will be a necessity in human life as long as time lasts. 

In later periods — ^beginning about the seventh cen- 
tury — the first attempts were made to base the ob- 
servance of Sunday on the Decalogue. With this 
shift of basis also went the change in the significance 
of the day, emphasizing less the place of worship and 
improvement of character on that day and more par- 
ticularly stringent abstinence from manual labor. 

The Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth cen- 
tury sought to restore Sunday to the significance that 
it bore in the minds of the early Christians. Recog- 
nizing the moral principles underlying the observance 
of the Jewish Sabbath, the Reformers absolutely re- 
jected the transfer theorj^, denying that the Christian 
Sunday had succeeded the Jewish Sabbath. Luther 
was so hostile to it that he dared to say that the 
Church ''could make Friday her Sunday." Calvin 
was no less emphatic. He argued for the absolute 



OBSERVING A DAY FOR REST AND WORSHIP 239 

necessity of the need of a day of rest for men and 
beast and for the observance of Sunday as the basis 
''of a joyful and free worship of God." 

This is the fine idealism that centers around this 
day. It is primarily a remembrance of that open tomb, 
broken beyond all the help of earthly masonry and 
giving to the soul the necessary opportunity of joyful 
freedom and sacred worship in order to make complete 
that development that marks kinship with Him who 
broke the tomb and who from its open doorway said : 
*'/ am fhe resurrection and tJie life: lie fhat helievetJi 
on me, tJiougJi Jie die, yet shall lie live; and whosoever 
livetJi and helievetJi on me shall never die." By this 
fact every Sunday is radiant with hope and musical 
with prophecy. 

In its secondary significance it embraces all the 
past that has had anything to do with a day of rest. 
It reemphasizes man's necessity. It was put in the 
calendar of time for his freedom, progress and civiliza- 
tion. When Jesus said, ''The sahhath was made for 
man" He lifted it out of its legal technicalities and 
set it on its broad humanitarian basis. It was not the 
Jewish Sabbath any more than the Jewish man about 
which He was speaking. He had in mind the sacred 
universal day grounded in human nature and all 
mankind's right to it. Above everything that had 
been made towered man, bearing the image of God. 
All things were his and for him. By all that had 
been made and would be made, man was to climb 
into permanent fellowship with God. 

This day is no curse with its dark forebodings. 
One might as well talk about eating and sleeping 



240 WORKING WITH GOD 

being a curse. This day is a blessing, bearing good 
will to man and beast and expressing God's love for 
the great wide world. A day for the cultivation of 
character and cessation of labor, carrying with it 
rest for the body and brain, is written deep down in 
our natures — as deep as faith and hope. For one to 
deny the rights of this day to himself closely ap- 
proaches suicide, and to deny it to others is more dis- 
astrous than scrimping tbe small wage earner of his 
wages or denying bread to the hungrj^ No legisla- 
ture has the moral right to bargain away this day for 
labor and sports denying to man one day in seven for 
rest. The people themselves cannot do it and main- 
tain the proper standard of ethics, much less their 
representatives in legislature. 

Around the observance of this day centers the sta- 
bility and character of a nation. In its proper ob- 
servance rest our temporal blessings and spiritual 
hopes. Desecrate this day and you have made an 
opening through which will pour every kind of calam- 
ity to plague a nation with decay and ruin. Work 
that makes no provision for resting one day in seven 
consumes the oxj^gen in the blood, deforms the brain, 
debases the morals and unfits one for the common re- 
sponsibilities of life by weakening the body and brain 
and thereby impairing the moral and spiritual pow- 
ers. It is a crime. No man can stand having his 
sacred rights continually taken from him without 
suffering demoralization. De Tocqueville, being asked 
what he considered the secret of America's strength, 
said, ''Chiefly because the spirit of the Pilgrim fa- 
thers has so permeated the people that as a whole they 



OBSERVING A DAY FOR REST AND WORSHIP 241 

take one day in seven to stop and reflect and wor- 
ship." Said Professor Goldwin Smith, "It is the 
freedom and educating power of Sunday which ex- 
plain the average prosperity of America." Enslave 
that freedom and abolish that educating power and 
you will have pulled down the pillars upon which the 
civilization of America rests. Therefore hallow this 
day. Hallow it for the sake of America and all other 
nations in our national sisterhood; hallow it for the 
sake of the race of which we are parts ; hallow it for 
our own selves and for the sake of Him who gave it 
to us; and so hallow it that we shall prove that free- 
dom, brotherhood and religion are the birthrights of 
all mankind. 



A Prayer 



O Christ, Whose blood has given color to the 
human race, we were dead and Thou hast made 
us alive. Command all our talents to the repro- 
duction of Thyself in us, for aft^r all, human 
life is but the frame and Thou art the picture of 
our being. Each of us is an artist and yet we 
sit in vain in Thy studio unless the sky of Thy 
unbroken blue be within us. Give us the grace 
to finish in ourselves what Thou hast given us to 
wish to begin, and Thyself reproduced in us shall 
be the crown of the highest achievement in Art. 
Keep us long in the chamber of human tender- 
ness; teach us to be courageous amid disappoint- 
ments; help us to learn the Art of suffering with 
sealed lips; enable us to bear sympathy to all 
mankind; set us free from the shackles of every 
sin; and give us the experience of Thyself when 
Thou wast here on earth. All sacred pictures 
are but prophecies, for what the human hand has 
wrought on canvas, faintly tells us what possi- 
bilities there are wrapped up in the faculties of 
the soul. Now Thou hast begotten us. What we 
shall be. Thou hast not revealed; but we know 
that under the last touch of the picture we shall 
60 much resemble Thee, ■ that all the universe 
shall know that we are Thy kin. Amen. 



242 



XIV 

With Sacred Paintings and Painters 



I would not want to be considered an Art critic, 
but I am somewhat a student of Art. In the spring 
of 1912 I delivered a course of lectures at the Uni- 
versity of Illinois on Christian Art, and at other 
times I have spoken on this delightful subject, hav- 
ing made it one of my occasional studies in the 
latter half of my twenty-five years ministry in 
Baltimore. ''Art is, indeed, a matter of common 
human concern," said Canon Farrar, ''and every 
man of ordinary education has a right to an opinion, 
if not upon its technical qualities, yet at least upon 
the thoughts which it conveys and the influence which 
it exercises over his mind. ' ' Next to the human face 
there is nothing more attractive to the eye than a pic- 
ture, irrespective of the age, the education or the so- 
cial condition of the beholder. Aristotle insisted that 
Art should have a moral influence upon the people 
and later Schasler affirmed that the aim of Art is 
moral perfection. Michaelangelo said, "True paint- 
ing is only an image of God's perfection, a shadow 
of the pencil, with which he paints, a melody, a striv- 
ing after harmony. ' ' Like music, pictures speak a uni- 
versal language and teach more people than any other 
single means of learning. The pictures upon which 
we daily look should be selected with more care than 

243 



244 WORKING WITH GOD 

the food we eat. It is no longer a question of expense, 
for the best pictures are among the cheapest and a 
frame is an inexpensive decoration. 

The message of a great picture has to do with the 
ennobling of the soul. Faith triumphs by the way of 
pictorial imagination, for faith is not possible without 
imagination. ''Banish imagination from your re- 
ligion/' said Forsyth, "and Art will be forced to 
invent a religion of its own, to the loss of many souls 
and the peril of more." Artists, like authors, how- 
ever are not always the bearers of the highest moral 
ideals, so judgment has to be exercised in the choice 
of pictures as in that of books. Aside from Scrip- 
tural themes, there are others quite as sacred, such 
as pictures of the sea, by such artists as Richards, 
Courant and James, of children by Loborichon and 
Anker; of prayer by Millet; of allegories by Watts; 
of myths by Burne-Jones; of romances by Eossetti, 
and a thousand other scenes in love and landscape, in 
home and toil, which really belong to sacred Art, 
of which the Holy Spirit is the inspirer. 

The purpose of knowledge is to find truth — the 
soul's anchor; according to Schiller and Kant, the 
purpose of Art is to find beauty — the soul's peace; 
and thus in the combining of reason with its revela- 
tion and the senses with their cultivated tastes, the 
soul is put in the way of attaining perfect harmony, 
for beauty properly understood is commingled with 
goodness. Sulzer rightly affirmed that only that can 
be considered beautiful which contains goodness. 
Gruyer said that the greatest painter is the one who 
unites beauty and spirituality. Truth is thinkable 



WITH SACRED PAINTINGS AND PAINTERS 245 

and beauty is the visible manifestation of inner good- 
ness. Thus Art closely approaches creation. Said 
Shaftsbury, ''That which is beautiful is harmonious 
and proportionable, what is harmonious and propor- 
tionable is true and what is at once both beautiful 
and true is of consequence agreeable and good.'' 

Christianity does not end with the New Testament. 
That book marks the close of the beginning of Ohris- 
tianity. Henceforth centuries were to show the power 
of its influence, as they have done. Sermons, de- 
bates, dogmas and the doings of believers have been 
preserved in countless volumes as the ordinary sources 
for the facts regarding that history, but out of the 
study of Christian Art, we gain some of the most im- 
portant knowledge and learn some of the most valu- 
able lessons. Said Ruskin, ' ' Great nations write their 
autobiographies in three manuscripts — the book of 
their deeds, the book of their words and the book of 
their Art. Not one of these books can be understood 
unless we read the two others ; but of the three, the 
only quite trustworthy one is the last." Art is the 
true story teller. It cannot be insincere. Its heart 
is open to every beholder. Said Carlyle, ''All real 
Art is the disimprisoned soul of fact. ' ' 

Among numerous instances in the medieval period 
of Art 's refusal to be the slave of ecclesiasticism, Raph- 
ael was asked to paint an allegorical picture of theol- 
ogy for the Vatican, and among its figures he painted 
Savonarola representing religion. Distasteful as it 
was to the Vatican court, it stood as a rebuke to the 
immoralities of that age and stands as a rebuke to 
the irreligion of this age. In his "Last Judgment" 



246 WORKING WITH GOD 

Michelangelo painted Biogio, the papal representa- 
tive, as one of the judges in Hades, because he had 
criticized the picture while it was being painted, as 
Leonardo da Vinci, it has been said, painted the like- 
ness of the prior of the convent for Judas in his ''La^t 
Supper." There is nowhere a more wonderful and 
significant story told of the adoration of the mother 
of Jesus than in Art. The first pictures of her ap- 
peared in the fifth century in the period of the 
Church's simpler faith, representing her in half- 
length pictures as a peasant mother with the Child in 
her arms. As the Church departed further and 
further from the Scriptures, Mary was lifted higher 
and higher until she was enthroned in the heavens. 
In his great picture of ''The Last Judgment," Or- 
cagna, of the fourteenth century, placed her at the 
top of the picture by the side of Christ, wearing her 
regal crown in the seat of judgment, with the apostles 
beneath her, as did other artists. Sometimes more 
reverence was given to Mary than to Christ. Some 
of the best paintings of her, by Murillo especially, and 
others, omitted the Child entirely, although the wor- 
ship accorded her was not like that to Him, in that 
her power was dependent upon the relationship of 
motherhood which she bore to Him. But on the rise 
of the Reformation, the entire field of Christian Art 
was changed. The open Bible gave the simplicity of 
the earthly life of Jesus and pastoral madonnas be- 
came numerous with Mary and the Child and Joseph 
on the earth as told in the Scriptures. 

The most charming pictures are those that have to 
do with Scriptural themes and especially those that 



WITH SACRED PAINTINGS AND PAINTERS 247 

have to do with Christ. "Imagination will find its 
holiest work in the lighting up of the Gospels," said 
Euskin, and there the artists have done their best, 
laying a wealth of genius upon the altar of adoring 
love. The history of Christian Art may be divided 
into three general periods: 

The first period deals with symbols. In the first 
and second centuries, which was the period of simplic- 
ity in worship and fidelity to the person of Christ, He 
was represented in symbols through Jewish influence 
of the Old Testament, such as Abraham offering up 
Isaac, symbolizing the sacrifice of Christ ; Moses strik- 
ing the rock, symbolizing Christ giving the water of 
life ; Jonah being cast into the sea and the fish vomit- 
ing him up, symbolizing the resurrection of Christ, 
and Daniel in the den of lions, symbolizing the inno- 
cence of Christ. Those Christians who had come from 
Paganism sometimes used a peacock, symbolizing im- 
mortality, or Orpheus taming wild animals with a 
lyre, symbolizing Christ in the fulfilment of Isaiah's 
prophecy, when it was said, ''The wolf shall dwell 
with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the 
kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling 
together; and a little child shall lead them." One of 
the most widely used symbols was a fish, sometimes 
a carp, symbolizing Christ's giving Himself as food 
for the soul : or a dolphin, which was regarded as the 
most friendly of fish, symbolizing protection, which 
was both a Pagan and a Jewish emblem. This sym- 
bol, however, did not always refer to Christ; some- 
times it was used in reference to the Church and at 
other times to baptism. A ship symbolized the 



^ 



248 WORKING WITH GOD 

Church on its voyage of life, a palm branch victory, 
an anchor hope and a dove innocence, but the dove 
rarely ever referred to Christ, usually to the believer 
and sometimes to the Holy Spirit. 

The Cross became a symbol of use in the fourth 
century, particularly after the traditional vision of 
Constantine in 312, as did also the monogram of 
Christ, which was the twenty-second letter in the 
Creek alphabet — ^X, but the most suggestive symbols 
were those of the New Testament, such as the lamb, 
the vine, miracles of healing, the resurrection of Laz- 
arus and the dearest of all, the Good Shepherd, the 
thought gotten from His own words and design, 
modeled somewhat after Apollo feeding his flock. All 
these symbols were in the Catacombs, reflecting the 
simplicity of that age, which suffered persecution, and 
implicitly believed in Him who had promised to come 
again. Dean Stanley said, ' ' It is astonishing how 
many of these decorations are taken from heathen 
sources and copied from heathen paintings. There is 
Orpheus playing on his harp to the beasts; there is 
Bacchus as the god of the vintage; there is Psyche, 
the butterfly of the soul ; there is Alpheus as the god 
of the river. The classical and the Christian, the 
Hebrew and Hellenic, elements had not yet parted. 
The strict demarcation, which the books of the period 
would imply between the Christian Church and the 
heathen world, had not yet been formed, or was con- 
stantly effaced. The Catacombs have more affinity 
with the chapel of Alexander Severus, which contained 
Orpheus side by side with Abraham and Christ, than 
they have with the writings of Tertullian, who spoke 



WITH SACRED PAINTINGS AND PAINTERS 249 

of heathen poets only to exult in their future tor- 
ments, or of Augustine, who regarded this very figure 
of Orpheus only as a mischievous teacher of the dis- 
paraged, not as a type of the union of the two forms 
of heathen and Christian civilization." Most of the 
early Christians looked with an unfriendly eye upon 
Art. For centuries Christians shrank from any direct 
representation of the human Christ. When artists 
began painting His pictures it was done with ex- 
treme reserve and reverence — not only because of the 
holiness of the theme, but for fear that they were vio- 
lating the second commandment: "Thou shalt not 
make unto thee a graven image, nor any likeness of 
anything that is in heaven above; . . . thou shalt not 
how down thyself unto them, nor serve them." The 
dread of idolatry, which surrounded the early Chris- 
tians, drove them to extreme caution, in spite of 
which a semi-idolatry did later creep into the adora- 
tion of sacred pictures and images, to the loss of 
spirituality in the Church. 

The second period deals with the apostasy of Art. 
Out of the theological errors of the third and fourth 
centuries, two distinct lines verged towards apostasy, 
which found their culmination in Art. One was 
adoration for Mary until worship to her almost held 
precedence over worship to Christ. Pictures of the 
Madonna were in nearly every church and thousands, 
unlike the Magi, paid their homage to the mother 
rather than to the Child. This necessarily weakened 
the hold of Christ on the believer and therefore weak- 
ened practicing the principles of Christ. 

But the worship of the Madonna having been estab- 



250 WORKING WITH GOD 

lished by the Council of Ephesus in 431, when Nes- 
torius was condemned for denying that Mary should 
be called ''mother of God," the Council of Nicgea in 
325 having decided that Christ was the same with 
the Father and therefore very God, the way was 
paved for the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception 
proclaimed by Duns Scotus in the fourteenth century 
and announced on December 8, 1854, by Pope Pius IX, 
on the advice of six hundred bishops, only four dis- 
senting, as the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church, 
although opposed along the way by such men as 
Bernard, of Clairvaux, Anslem, Aquinas and others 
of equal fame and piety. So, after fifteen hundred 
years of contest, the adoration of Mary became a 
permanent part of the faith in the largest division 
of Christendom, 

The other line of divergence was emphasizing the 
agonies of Christ, which received a comparatively 
small space in the New Testament. In 566 Babbula, 
of Mesopotamia, painted the first picture of the cruci- 
fixion and in the same century the crucifixion became 
a part of worship. The popularity of this theme for 
Art increased until every religious artist had pro- 
duced on canvas his conception of the agonies of 
Christ and the crucifix was in every household. A 
remnant of this idea is the stations of the cross, which 
appeared in 1477, when Martin Kotzel, of Nuremberg, 
visited Jerusalem and invited Adam Kraft, a friend 
of Dtirer, to paint seven scenes, beginning with His 
starting out of the city bearing the cross and ending 
in the crucifixion. All this appealed to a supersti- 
tious age and, with such scenes of agony presented as 



WITH SACRED PAINTINGS AND PAINTERS 251 

the heart of religion, revenge against heretics was 
easily nursed in the bosom of believers until Chris- 
tianity drifted almost entirely from its original base. 
Pictures of the bleeding Christ and the crucifixion 
helped to produce the Crusades and the bloody In- 
quisition was its climax. Of this condition Ruskin 
said, ''In its higher branches, this realistic Art 
touches the most sincere religious minds; but in its 
lowest, it not only addresses itself to the most vulgar 
desire for religious excitement, but to the mere thirst 
for sensation, for horror, which characterizes the un- 
educated order of partially civilized countries — and 
it has occupied the sensibility of Christian women 
invariably in lamenting the sufferings of Christ, in- 
stead of preventing those of the people — for the Art 
nearly always dwells on the physical wounds or ex- 
haustion chiefly, and degrades, far more than it ani- 
mates, the conception of pain. ' ' 

The third period deals with the return of Art as a 
rightful interpreter. From the time of the sixteenth 
century Reformation with its open Bible, artists be- 
gan to paint pictures with greater simplicity, more 
true to the Scriptures and ancient conditions, other 
scenes receiving prominent recognition and His suf- 
ferings reduced to their Scriptural place, as in the 
works of Hunt, Tissot and Hofmann. However, while 
Thomas a Kempis, in Germany, was writing his ' ' Imi- 
tation of Christ, ' ' Fra Angelico was preaching to the 
multitudes in Italy by putting his faith and devotion 
on canvas. His excellence in painting angels appears 
to have been because they were his constant com- 
panions, for the atmosphere of his studio appears to 



252 WORKING WITH GOD 

have been a breath of heaven. Farrar called him 
''the painter of the pure in heart" and he himself 
said, ''Hie who occupies himself with the things of 
Christ must ever dwell with Christ." Bartolommeo 
was the personal friend of Savonarola. After his 
burning the artist abandoned Art until aroused to 
the task in later years by the enthusiasm of Eaphael, 
between whom there arose a friendship like that be- 
tween David and Jonathan. Botticelli, who wit- 
nessed the burning of Savonarola, was another such 
soul, as were Giotto, Duccio, Ghiberti, Bellini, Luini, 
Lotto, Credi and others. The religious artists have 
always composed a small group. They were working 
in their own fashion for the freedom of religion, as 
Savonarola, Huss and Luther were working in their 
fashion to the same end. 

Scene after scene from the masters adorned the 
churches, monasteries, convents, cathedrals and art 
galleries. Cimabue, Giotto and Duccio, the evangel- 
ists of Art, broke from the formal Byzantine tram- 
mels for more natural methods, which led to modern 
painting. Those who could not read the biography 
of Jesus from the hands of Matthew, Mark, Luke and 
John, could read the story of His earthly life in 
pictures from the hands of these and Fra Angelico, 
Bartolommeo, Botticelli, Diirer, Perugino, Kaphael, 
Correggio, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Luini 
and Titian of the early period, and Rubens, Van 
Dyck, Rembrandt, Overbeck, Scheffer, Dore, Bida, 
Hofmann and Hunt of the later period, and Tissot, of 
yesterday, besides a great host of others through all 
these periods, seeking to bring us nearer the In- 



WITH SACRED PAINTINGS AND PAINTERS 253 

finite, delivering ''the burning message of prophecy 
with the stanunering lips of infancy." 

The first picture of Christ appeared in the fifth 
century under the work of the Byzantine artists, 
being strong but formal. All pictures of that period 
were free from nimbuses. The Italian school followed 
and after many centuries brought these ideals to per- 
fection. Sacred pictures, however, had been used in 
the churches as far back as the fourth century to 
strengthen the faith of believers amid persecution. 
Two centuries later the Council of Constantinople in 
691 ordered symbols to be displaced by pictures of 
Christ. In 754 this order was revoked because of the 
tendency to worship the pictures and so painters had 
their hands burned with red hot irons, especially 
Lazarus, the monk, because he painted a picture for 
adoration; but in the same century there came a 
revival of painting sacred pictures. Not until the 
Renaissance, however, were there any pictures of 
Christ bearing the touch of the highest Art. Orna- 
mentation has always indicated degeneration. This 
was so in architecture, as is seen in the simplicity of 
the Doric column, which was produced during the age 
when Grecian morals were highest. It was succeeded 
by the somewhat elaborate Ionic column and that by 
the most elaborate Corinthian column, when Grecian 
degeneration was at its lowest. This principle was so 
in painting — ^the simplicity of the Byzantine artists, 
the ornamentation of the medieval period and sim- 
plicity and freedom following the Reformation. 

Artists brought the wealth of their imagination in 
painting the annunciation, Murillo painting it nine 
times. Of Fra Angelico's in San Marco, Taine re- 



254 ' WORKING WITH GOD 

marked, ''Such immaculate modesty, such virginal 
candour ! By her side Raphael 's ' Virgins ' are merely 
vigorous peasant girls." Perhaps the most popular 
picture of the nativity is by Correggio entitled ' ' The 
Night," which shows Mary holding the Child on a 
bed of straw and from Him a heavenly glow lights up 
the face and bosom of the mother, while in the rear 
is Joseph with the donkey, and angels canopy the 
holy family. Bellini's ''Madonna of the Pomegran- 
ate," symbolizing good works, has been greatly ad- 
mired, as have also the three paintings by Eaphael — 
' ' The Beautiful Gardener, ' ' where the Child is look- 
ing up at His mother; "The Madonna in the 
Meadow," where the Child is interested in the cross 
which John has given him; and ''The Madonna of 
the Goldfinch, ' ' where the Child is stroking the gold- 
finch, having its wings red, symbolizing the wounded 
side of Jesus, and then Raphael's great Sistine 
Madonna. Correggio painted a madonna with her 
arms around the Child and His arms playfully 
around her neck. This is sweetness. With the ex- 
ception of having too elegantly dressed the Madonna, 
Titian's must be considered among the best. The 
Child is lying on her lap with one hand lifted and she 
is looking down upon Him with her hand upon her 
breast. This is motherhood. Although Bodenhausen 
put the Madonna on the clouds, and to that extent 
departs from the more natural position, yet this pic- 
ture's popularity will rarely be excelled. The young 
mother with flowing hair holds the Child to her 
bosom. This is love. But there is no end to the 



WITH SACRED PAINTINGS AND PAINTERS 255 

madonnas, for all the great artists have left us their 
ideals. 

I can only refer to a few of the great paintings in 
the life of Jesus. La Rolle's ''Arrival of the Shep- 
herds," with Mary sitting in the distance on a bed 
of straw holding the Child in her lap, rests largely 
upon his artful interpretation of nature in evening 
effects. Eembrandt's ''Night Watch" alone would 
have made him the chief of the Dutch painters, while 
his "Presentation in the Temple" strengthens him in 
that position. Botticelli put much of Dante 's ' ' Divine 
Comedy ' ' on canvas and his ' ' Adoration of the Three 
Kings" is perhaps his greatest achievement in Art. 
In Herod's attempt to kill Jesus perhaps a dozen or 
more infants in Bethlehem were murdered. Holman 
Hunt, who has been the most noted of English artists 
for originality of conception, made this the subject 
of his genius in the picture entitled "The Triumph 
of the Innocents," representing the glorified spirits 
of the murdered children surrounding the holy family 
on their way to Egypt with Jesus holding a handful 
of wheat to the spirits, symbolizing the bread of life. 
Euskin called this ' ' the greatest of religious pictures. ' ' 
Menson's "Repose in Egypt," representing Mary and 
the Child resting in the bosom of the Sphinx while 
Joseph is lying asleep on the sand, is very popular. 
Millais, who for years was the leading portrait painter 
of London, produced a work of great merit called 
' ' The Carpenter Shop, ' ' where Joseph is at work and 
Jesus is being kissed by Mary because He has hurt 
His hand with a nail, referring to Zechariah's 
prophecy — '^WJiat are tJiese wounds between TJiine 



256 WORKING WITH GOD 

Jiandsf* John is bringing a basin of water and in 
the distance is seen a flock of sheep as though they 
are seeking their shepherd. Guido Reni's "Christ 
and John," is one of the most charming works in 
devotional Art. Hunt's "Shadow of Death," where 
Jesus at the carpenter's bench towards the close of 
the day stands up and throws a shadow of the Cross 
behind Him, is a great picture, although Forsyth re- 
garded Hunt's picture entitled "The Scapegoat" as 
presenting in concrete spirituality "the greatest 
Christ that Protestant Art has attained to. ' ' 

The temptation has furnished themes for all the 
artists, as have those themes fulfilling the purpose of 
His ministry in teaching the multitudes and healing 
the sick. Here we have Scheffer's "Christus Conso- 
lator," Hofmann's "Behold I Stand at the Door" 
and ' ' Come Unto Me, ' ' Hunt 's ' ' Light of the World, ' ' 
Zimmermann's "Christ and the Fisherman," Titian's 
"Tribute Money" and a thousand others in which 
Dore, Tissot and others wrought their best. Art 
reached its highest in the transfiguration. Titian, at 
eighty-nine years, achieved great honor in his con- 
ception, and Eaphael not only did with this sub- 
ject the best work of his short life of thirty-seven 
years, but made it one of the greatest achievements in 
Art, the task, however, was too great for his Divine 
genius and he died without finishing it. It was the 
last scene of his mortal vision and it hung over his 
bier when his hand of Art laid cold in death, while 
all Rome wept as one weeps for his kin. Giulio 
Romano finished it. 

A thousand pictures cluster around the cross. 



WITH SACRED PAINTINGS AND PAINTERS 257 

Leonardo da Vinci's ''Last Supper" will live as long 
as pictures last, although, the head of the convent 
came near dismissing him because he spent so many 
hours in meditation before beginning the day's task. 
Munkacsy is the artist of the trial. In his ''Christ 
Before Pilate" the majesty of Christ, the irreverence 
of the multitude and the agitation of Pilate are com- 
bined with great skill. Tintoretto 's conception of the 
crucifixion, which made a picture forty-five feet long, 
has been the admiration of the world, as has Rubens' 
two pictures — "The Elevation of the Cross" and 
"The Descent from the Cross." A thousand years 
before His death, it was predicted that Christ would 
arise from the dead. The apostles hurried to the tomb 
and artists have anxiously stood about the scene from 
the time of Ghiberti's panels on the gates of the baptis- 
tery at Florence down to Burne- Jones' beautiful win- 
dow in the Hofton Church. Hofmann has pictured 
"The Walk to Emmaus" and Bellini "The Supper at 
Emmaus. ' ' For years there was a reserve in painting 
the ascension, but Correggio, Tintoretto and Raphael 
of the early period and La Farge, of later years have 
left us their visions of the ascending Christ. 

With hurried steps I have hastened down the cor- 
ridors of sacred pictures. I have omitted hundreds 
of the finest pictures and likewise the names of some 
of the best artists. Tissot found his two hundred and 
sixty subjects for his brush among the pen pictures 
of the Gospels, and the life of Christ became to him 
one grand picture gallery, with himself supplicating 
at the feet of our Lord for pardon and peace, making 
a picture in sacredness far beyond the color and can- 



258 WORKING WITH GOD 

vas of painting. Art has a mission. Tennyson once 
said, "They talk of Art for Art's sake. There is 
something higher than Art for Art's sake — Art for 
man's sake." And further he wrote, 

"Art for Art's sake! Hail, truest Lord of HeU! 

Hail, Genius! Master of the moral will! 
The filthiest of all paintings painted well 

Is mightier than the purest painted ill! 
Yes, mightier than the purest painted well. 

So prone are we toward the broad way to Hell ! ' ' 

Eeal Art must forget itself and it must be spiritual 
enough to deal with the heart and soul, rather than 
mere bodily outlines. There must be abandonment in 
all Art until all the graces and experiences of the hu- 
man soul become as real as the things we see, for 
Art worships in the realm of the unseen, as said Far- 
rar, ''The artist opens our eyes to read, writ large 
over the universe, 'God's autograph of love.' He 
throws a sunlight upon the things we see and inter- 
prets both nature and human life. He takes us out of 
the gloom and sets us at the open window, in order 
that we may look out upon the uncovered world. " "I 
never saw such colors in nature as you represent," 
said some one to Turner. ' ' No, ' ' answered the great 
painter, "but don't you wish you could?" 

* ' The Art which we profess, ' ' said Sir Joshua Rey- 
nolds, "has beauty for its object : this it is our business 
to discover and to express. But the beauty of which 
we are in quest is general and intellectual; it is an 
idea that subsists only in the mind: the sight never 
beheld it, nor has the hand expressed it ; it is an idea 
residing in the breast of the artist, which he is al- 



WITH SACRED PAINTINGS AND PAINTERS 259 

ways laboring to impart, and which he dies at last 
without imparting, but which he is yet so far able to 
communicate as to raise the thoughts and extend the 
views of the spectator ; and which, by a succession of 
Art, may be so far diffused that its effects may extend 
themselves imperceptibly into public benefits, and 
be among the means of bestowing on whole nations 
refinement of taste, which, if it does not lead directly 
to purity of manners, obviates at least their greatest 
depravation, by disentangling the mind from appetite, 
and conducting the thoughts through successive stages 
of excellence, till that contemplation of universal recti- 
tude and harmony, which began by taste, may, as it is 
exalted and refined, conclude in virtue. ' ' 

The greatest message of Art is in prophecy, al- 
though Goethe said, ''Art is a comrade and not a 
guide." It is true that it does not deal so directly 
with the soul's problem as the Hebrew prophets and 
Christian apostles, neither does it have to do with 
the conscience, where religion necessarily centers ; but 
in its indirect message, and that it holds some kind 
of message must be recognized by every lover of Art, 
it symbolizes the soul's aspirations and achievements. 
Phidias wrought with chisel and gave to the Greeks 
their highest conception of God in his Olympian Zeus, 
as Isaiah wrought with literary and poetic Art, tak- 
ing the Hebrews to the untrodden heights of revela- 
tion in his presentation of the Fatherhood of Jehovah 
in His redemption of the world. Had Isaiah lived in 
picturesque Greece and Phidias amid the unartistic 
scenes of Palestine, the former might have left his 
message in marble and the latter have left his in let- 



260 WORKING WITH GOD 

ters ; both were prophets. Of Phidias, Ernst Curtius 
said, ''This artist deserves the high name of theo- 
logian. For his works were at once revelations of the 
Divine and the reflections of the soul of his race." 
The same might be said of Fra Angelico, Raphael, 
Leonardo da Vinci and the entire group of religious 
painters. They were as truly clergymen as Anselm or 
Aquinas or Luther or Calvin. Their pictures are the 
shadow of Divine perfection. The artist sought free- 
dom, rest and harmony and these are the great prin- 
ciples that must enter into the solution of the prob- 
lems of life. The soul must be free to act. Like 
pictures, great principles lie within our bosoms. Art 
must have rest. So must the soul. Ruskin said, 
''Colour is the spiritual power of Art." It may be 
as truly said that rest gives spiritual color to the soul 
— the withdrawing for meditation. Out of the har- 
mony of Art I read the possibilities of order coming 
out of this world of chaos. In Art, harmony has to 
do with the order and completeness of things to each 
other. It is no less so in life. There is a conscious 
pain in disorder. The heart of the human race aches 
in its loss of brotherly unity. The greatest task is to 
attain to that unity — not beyond the grave, but here 
on this side of the tomb. To that end the artist has 
painted his sacred pictures, attempting to clothe 
beauty and truth with a spirituality that has borrowed 
its charm from the unseen. 

^'Wlien earth's last picture is painted, and the tubes are 
twisted and dried, 
When the oldest colors have faded, and the youngest critic 
has died, 



WITH SACRED PAINTINGS AND PAINTERS 261 

We shall rest, and faith we shall need it — lie down for an 

aeon or two, 
Till the Master of all good workmen shall set us to work 

anew; 

^'And those that were good shall be happy: they shall sit in 

a golden chair; 
They sh^ splash at a ten-leagne canvas with brushes of 

comet's hair; 
They shall find real saints to draw from — Magdalene, Peter 

and Paul; 
They shall work for an age at a sitting and never be tired 

at all; 

"And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master 
shall blame ; 

And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work 
for fame; 

But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his sep- 
arate star. 

Shall paint the Thing as he sees it for the God of Things 
as they are. ' ' 



Differences Not Disagreements 



Because mj brother and I differ in opiniona, 
temperament^ environment and nationality is no 
reason that we should disagree. With all our 
differences, and they are as many as there are 
individuals, conflict with one another is an ab- 
normal condition. The elms and the oaks do not 
disturb the forests by their differences any more 
than the gardens are disturbed by the differences 
between the roses and the dahlias and my brother 
and I are beginning to learn from the forests and 
the gardens that there may be differences among 
ourselves without disagreements. This is the mes- 
sage of Jesus. The practice of love, honesty, jus- 
tice, liberal-mindedness and toleration sets smooth 
edges against the rough of the opposites and 
these smooth edges will wear away the roughness 
as drops of water wear away the stone. — From 
My Brother And I. 



262 



XV 

An Evening With the Jews 



For many years I have been interested in the Jews, 
both in studying their story in the light of prophecy 
and in speaking in defense of them. On the occasion 
of the meeting of a Jewish society of university men 
at the residence of a well-known and fashionable 
Jew on Eutaw Place, I was invited by the hostess to 
be their guest, which included making an address of 
thirty minutes and afterwards dining with them. It 
was the first time that a Christian had been invited to 
be the guest of this society and I was asked to speak 
relative to the Jews and their future as indicated by 
Scriptural prophecy. I could not have had a more 
congenial theme, nor a more courteous audience. 

After the address they began asking questions and 
there are many hard questions to answer when it 
comes to the Christian's treatment of the Jew. It is 
the saddest record in aU history. They have been 
hated and abused by all nations whither they have 
gone, especially by Christians. Out of prejudice and 
ignorance many have thought in manifesting their 
dislike for the Jew they have been doing God's serv- 
ice. The year 1492, so illustrious in the annals of 
American history, was one of the darkest, if not the 
darkest in Jewish history, when at the instance of 
Torquemada they were driven out of Spain. Vast 

263 



264 WORKING WITH GOD 

mimbers took their lives and others were hunted like 
wild animals throughout the so-called Christian na- 
tions of Europe, while many of the wealthy class 
found an asylum in Mohammedan Turkey. The sul- 
tan of Bajazet said, ''They call Ferdinand the wise, 
but by expelling the Jews he has made Turkey rich 
and Spain poor. ' ' The remnant of this hostility still 
lingers in some quarters among all nations, for which 
the Christian has to acknowledge the sin and bow his 
head in shame, for Christ never taught His followers 
to discriminate against any nation, certainly not 
against the nation from which Christ Himself came. 
God is no respecter of persons or nations, but "Jie 
fhat fearetli Him, and worhetli rigJiteoiosness, is ac- 
ceptable to Him.'' 

It was asked : " Do you think this history is a ful- 
filment of prophecy?" 

''Well, let us see. There is no prophecy regarding 
Christians persecuting the Jews, and persecution of 
any individual or nation on the part of Christians is 
a denial of Christ. But the prophecies in Leviticus 
26:14-39 and in Deuteronomy 28:58-68, besides other 
instances, affirm that if the Jews did not observe the 
law and fear Jehovah they would be scattered among 
all nations and among these nations they would find 
no ease nor assurance of life. But this did not 
justify any nation in the past nor does it justify any 
nation now persecuting the Jews, any more than 
Elisha predicting that Hazael would become king over 
Syria was justification for Hazael's taking the life 
of King Ben-hadad, as recorded in the eighth chapter 
of Second Kings. 



AN EVENING WITH THE JEWS 265 

''I am often reminded of the answer which the 
chaplain of Frederick William, of Prussia, made when 
his sovereign asked him to furnish in a single sentence 
a proof of Christianity and the chaplain replied, ' The 
Jews, your Majesty. ' The fact is, the Jews are God 's 
chosen people in more instances than commonly un- 
derstood by that term. They are witnesses to the 
truth of revelation in both their faithfulness and 
unfaithfulness and that witness runs through both 
the Old and the New Testament. They have been 
set apart for this service as no other nation, painful 
as it has been in some instances and glorious as it 
has been in others. While it is said in Jeremiah 24 :9 
and 29:18 that if the Jews obeyed not the voice of 
Jehovah they would become abhorred among all peo- 
ple, ^a proverb, a taunt/ 'a Mssing, and a reproach, 
among all the nations whither I have driven them;' it 
is likewise said in I Chronicles 16 :21 : 'He suffered no 
man to do them wrong; yea, He reproved kings for 
their sakes.' 

' ' This is also repeated in Psalm 105 :14, and you 
will recall that all the ancient oppressors of the Jews 
have had to pay severely for it. Pharaoh and his army 
were overthrown in the Red Sea; the Assyrian army 
was slain by the angel of Jehovah and on Sen- 
nacherib's return to Nineveh his own sons took his 
life; Nebuchadnezzar was driven to eat grass like 
oxen; Belshazzar was smitten on his throne; Anti- 
ochus Epiphanes came to a miserable end and Titus 
was poisoned at the hands of his own brother. 

''The nations that have oppressed the Jews have 
likewise had to suffer. Spain dropped from her lofty 



266 WORKING WITH GOD 

place among the nations to a place of smallest con- 
sideration and where are Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, 
Persia, Greece, Syria and Rome? Frederick the 
Great, of Prussia, was a disciple of Voltaire and not a 
student of prophecy, but he said: 'To oppress the 
Jews has never brought prosperity to any govern- 
ment. ' Russia and every other nation that has perse- 
cuted the Jews will have to answer, for it is said in 
Jeremiah 30:11, *I will make a full end of all tJie 
nations wJiitJier I Jiave scattered tJiee, hut I will not 
make a full end of tJiee/ Although the Jews have had 
no political existence since the year 70, when Jeru- 
salem was destroyed by the Romans under Titus, yet 
they are as distinct to-day as in the days of David or 
Nehemiah, for which there can be no other explana- 
tion than their relation to prophecy. While it is 
said in Isaiah 48 :10 : 'Z have chosen thee in the furnace 
of affliction/ and Jewish history is certainly a witness 
to this, it must not be forgotten that it is also said in 
Psalm 147 :20 : ^He hath not dealt so with any nation.' 
In spite of all this suffering, prophecy indicates that 
the great day of Jewish history lies in the distant 
future, when they will attain an excellency superior 
to anything in their past. ' ' 

It was asked: ''Do you think that in order to at- 
tain this excellency the Jews will have to return to 
Palestine?" 

' ' Yes, that is so according to Scriptural prophecy. 
It is affirmed that they will the second time be gath- 
ered into Palestine and that they shall be plucked up 
no more from their land. Let me read you from 
Isaiah 11:11: 



AN EVENING WITH THE JEWS 267 

" 'And it shall come to pass in that day that the 
Lord will set His hand again the second time to re- 
cover the remnant of His people, that shall remain, 
from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and 
from Gush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and 
from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea/ 

''Also Isaiah 43:6: 

'' '/ will say to the north, Give up; and to the 
south, Keep not hack; bring my sons from far, and 
my daughters from the end of the earth/ 

''Also Amos ^:15: 

" '7 will plant them upon their land, and they shall 
no more he plucked up out of their land which I have 
given them, saith Jehovah thy God.' " 

It was further asked: "Even if they return there, 
what is it that will give them this excellency you 
have referred to?" 

' ' It will be their acceptance of Jesus as their Mes- 
siah when He comes the second time. Let me read 
you again from the Old Testament. In Zechariah 
12:10, 11 it is said: 

" '7 will pour upon the house of David, and upon 
the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and 
of supplication; and they shall look unto Me whom 
they have pierced; and they shall mourn for Him, as 
one mourneth for his only son, and shall he in bit- 
terness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his 
first-born. In that day shall there be a great mourn- 
ing in Jerusalem.' 

"The New Testament also deals very clearly with 
this subject and I will now read from that. In Paul's 
epistle to the Romans he devotes three chapters to 



268 WORKING WITH GOD 

the Jews, dealing with their service to Jehovah, their 
rejection by Jehovah, their partial apostasy and their 
final salvation. These are chapters nine, ten and 
eleven. He begins the ninth chapter by saying : 

'' 'J say fhe truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience 
hearing witness with me in the Holy Spirit, that I 
have great sorrow and unceasing pain in my heart. 
For I could wish that I myself were anathema from 
Christ for my brethren^ s sake, my kinsmen according 
to the flesh: who are Israelites; whose is the adoption, 
and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the 
law, and the service of God, and the promises; whose 
are the fathers, and of whom is Christ as concerning 
the flesh, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.' 

''This is also an example set before ns as to the 
Christian's appreciation of the Jews as a nation. 
Paul then proceeds to contrast faith with obedience to 
the law, showing the superiority of the former over the 
latter, closing the ninth chapter with these words : 

" 'What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, 
who followed not after righteousness, attained to 
righteousness, even the righteousness which is of 
faith: hut Israel, following after a law of righteous- 
ness, did not arrive at that law. Wherefore f Because 
they sought it not hy faith, hut as it were hy works.' 

' ' In the beginning of the tenth chapter Paul says : 

'* 'Brethren, my heart's desire and my supplica- 
tion to God is for them, that they may he saved. For 
I hear them witness that they have a zeal for God, 
hut not according to knowledge. For heing ignorant 
of God's righteousness, and seeking to establish their 
own, they did not subject themselves to the righteous- 
ness of God. For Christ is the end of the law unto 
righteousness to everyone that helieveth.' 



AN EVENING WITH THE JEWS 269 

''Then he follows this by showing that the Jews 
are responsible for their own rejection, breaking forth 
in Isaiah's lamentation as quoted from the sixty-fifth 
chapter of that prophecy. It marks the close of this 
tenth chapter of Eomans. I will read the quotation : 

" ^I was found of tJiem tJiat sought Me Tiot; 
I became manifest unto them that asked not of 

Me. 
But as to Israel He saith, All the day long did I 

spread out My hands unto a disobedient 

and gainsaying people.' 

' * Now I want to read selections from the eleventh 
chapter of Romans, which is the climax both in th^ 
argument and in the revelation. It opens with these 
words : 

'' 'Z say then, Did God cast off His people? God 
forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of 
Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God did not cast 
off His people which He foreknew.' ^ 

''Then Paul affirms that as there was a remnant 
among the Jews in the days of Elijah who were faith- 
ful to Jehovah, so there is a remnant now. I will 
read the fifth verse. He says : 

" 'Even so then at this present time also there is 
a remnant according to the election of grace.' 

"That is to say, there is a remnant of Jews, in- 
cluding many thousands at that time who had ac- 
cepted Jesus as the Messiah, and there always has been 
a remnant of Jews in the Christian fold down to this 
present day. I am told that at this time there are a 
large number of Jewish ministers alone in Christian 



270 WORKING WITH GOD 

pulpits. Beginning with the eleventh verse I will 
read again: 

*^ *I say then, Bid tliey stumble tJiat they might 
fall? God forbid: but by their fall salvation is come 
unto the Gentiles, to provoke them to jealousy/ 

''This is one of the most remarkable utterances 
upon the plan of the world's salvation to be found in 
the Scriptures, for it affirms nothing less than that 
the Jewish rejection of Jesus as the Messiah opened 
the way for the Gentiles' acceptance of Him. Then 
follows the next verse in which he says : 

'' 'Now if their fall is the riches of the world, and 
their loss the riches of the Gentiles; how much Trior e 
their fulness f* 

"That is to say, if their rejection opened the Gos- 
pel to the whole world, what unspeakable glory it will 
be when they themselves accept Jesus as their Mes- 
siah ? Then the fifteenth verse : 

" 'If the casting away of them is the reconciling of 
the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but 
life from tlu dead?' 

**I will read on further: 

" 'And if the firstfruit is holy, so is the lump: and 
if the root is holy, so are the branches.' 

"Now 'the firstfruit' referred to here is the 
apostles and the first members of the early Church, all 
of whom for the first few years were Jews, and 'the 
lump' refers to the entire Jewish nation. Likewise 
'the root' in this verse refers to Abraham, Isaac, 
Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Samuel, David, Isaiah and all 
that mighty host of the faithful, and 'the branches' 



AN EVENING WITH THE JEWS 271 

refers to the Jews scattered throughout all the world 
to-day. 

*^Then he proceeds in a figure to show how the 
Jews will come back into their glorious heritage. As 
I read I wish you to observe that when he speaks of 
the 'branches' being broken off and the term 'natural 
branches,' he refers to the Jews, and when he speaks 
of the 'wild olive,' he refers to the Gentiles. I will 
begin reading at the seventeenth verse : 

'' 'But if some of the branches were broken off, and 
thou, being a wild olive, wast grafted in among them, 
and didst become partaker with them of the root of 
the fatness of the olive tree; glory not over the 
branches; but if thou gloriest, it is not thou that 
bearest the root, but the root thee. Thou wUt say 
then. Branches were broken off, that I might be 
grafted in. Well; by their unbelief they were broken 
off, and thou standest by thy faith.' 

' ' Then he exhorts the Gentiles to holiness in being 
humble and faithful, using the Jewish partial apos- 
tasy and final acceptance upon which to make his 
argument, noticing, please, that the terms 'natural 
branches,' 'a good olive tree' and 'their own olive 
tree' refer to the Jews. I will continue reading, be- 
ginning in the latter part of the twentieth verse : 

" '5e not high-minded, but fear; for if God spared 
not the Tiatural branches, neither will He spare thee. 
Behold then the goodness and severity of God; toward 
them that fell, severity; but toward thee, God's good- 
ness, if thou continue in His goodness; otherwise thou 
also shalt be cut off. And they also, if they continue 
not in their unbelief, shall be grafted in: for God is 
able to graft them in again. For if thou wast cut out 
of tJiat which is by nature a wild olive tree, and wast 



272 WORKING WITH GOD 

grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree; 
Jiow much more sJiall these, which are the natural 
branches y he grafted into their own olive tree?* 

'^ Conscious of the mystery he is unfolding, and 
affirming that Jewish unbelief relative to Jesus as 
the Messiah will continue until the Gentiles shall show 
indications of general unfaithfulness, Paul breaks 
forth with the statement that when the Deliverer 
comes ^He sliall turn away ungodliness from Jacob.' 
The Deliverer spoken of is Jesus and the time is at 
His second advent. Let me read you, beginning with 
the twenty-fifth verse: 

'' '7 would not, brethren, have yon ignorant of this 
mystery, lest ye be wise in your own conceits, that 
a hardening in part hath befallen Israel, until the ful- 
ness of the Gentiles be come in; and so all Israel shall 
be saved: even as it is written, 

There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer; 
He shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: 
And this is My covenant unto them. 
When I shall take away their sins/ 

' ' Then passing over a few verses, Paul closes this 
wonderful revelation with an outburst of adoration to 
God. This begins with the thirty-third verse. I will 
read it : 

'' '0 the depth of the riches both of the wisdom 
and the knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His 
judgments, and His ways past tracing out! For who 
hath known the mind of the Lord? or who huth been 
His counsellor? or who hath first given to Him, and it 
shall be recompensed unto Him again? For of Him, 
and through Him, and unto Him, are all things. To 
Him be the glory for ever. Amen.' 



AN EVENING WITH THE JEWS 273 

''Now I will go back to the Old Testament, coming 
to that period which the prophecy emphasizes when the 
Jew shall no longer be a taunt and a hissing. I will 
read from Isaiah 60 :15, 16 : 

'' 'Whereas tJiou hast been forsaken and hated, so 
that no man passed through thee, I will make thee an 
eternal excellency, a joy of many generations. Thou 
slialt also suck the milk of the nations, and shalt suck 
the breast of kings; and thou shalt know that I, Je- 
hovah, am thy Saviour, and thy Redeemer, the 
Mighty One of Jacob.' 

' ' Let me read from Zechariah 8 :23 : 

'^ 'In those days it shall come to pass, that ten 
men shall take hold, out of all the languages of the 
nations, they shall take hold of the skirt of him that 
is a Jew, saying. We will go with you, for we have 
heard that God is with you.' 

' ' Then the Jews will become the head of the nation. 
This is the promise as far back as in the days of 
Moses, when it was said in Deuteronomy 28:13, 
'Jehovah will make thee the head, and not the tail.' 
In Jeremiah 31 :33 it is said : 

" 'This is the covenant that I will make with the 
house of Israel after those days, saith Jehovah: I will 
put my law in their inward parts, and in their heart 
will I ivrite it; and I will be their God, and they 
shall be my people.' 

''The whole of the sixtieth chapter of Isaiah is a 
magnificent description of the rebuilt and beautified 
Jerusalem, when it shall be the capital of the whole 
earth called 'The city of Jehovah, The Zion of the 
Holy One of Israel.' Then: 'The earth shall be fxdl of 
the knowledge of Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea,' 
and then, 'The kingdom of the world is become the 



274 WORKING WITH GOD 

kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ: and He sJiall 
reign for ever and ever/ Such is the revelation ac- 
cording to the Scriptural prophecy of God's dealing 
with the Jews, and now under the Zionist movement 
more than 100,000 Jews have returned to Palestine." 

It was asked : ' ' Do you not think it was the mas- 
terful effort of Paul that established Christianity, 
rather than the idea of Jesus that it should be a dis- 
tinct religion?" 

'*I think it will be acknowledged without question 
that Paul was the greatest exponent of Christianity in 
the apostolic times and impressed his personality upon 
the early Church, but Jesus by His life, death and 
resurrection gave a foundation to Christianity that 
has made its appeal so irresistible. Paul always 
pointed to Jesus, who was the corner-stone in the new 
structure, but the Jewish prophets were a part of this 
foundation, so that Christianity is not so much a dis- 
tinct religion, but rather a spiritual development from 
the types and shadows of the Jewish religion. Jesus 
Himself said that He did not come to destroy the law 
but to fulfil it." 

It was asked : ' ' Is not the second coming of Jesus 
preeminently a Pauline doctrine ? ' ' 

" No ; I do not know that Paul mentions this any 
more than any other of the New Testament writers, 
perhaps not so much as the others, although he men- 
tions it in nearly all of his epistles. Jesus mentions 
it quite frequently, as recorded by Matthew, Mark, 
Luke and John. The book of Acts opens with this 
statement, which is connected with the ascension of 
Jesus from the mount of Olives. I will read from 
Acts 1 :11 : 



AN EVENING WITH THE JEWS 275 

** 'Ye men of Galilee, wJiy stand ye looking into 
Jieaven? This Jesus, wJio was received up from you 
into Jieaven, sJiall so come in like manner as ye heJield 
Him going into Jieaven/ 

*'It is also mentioned in the letter to the Hebrews. 
I refer especially to Hebrews 9 :28 : 

'' 'So Christ also, having been once offered to hear 
the sins of many, shall appear a second time, apart 
from sin, to them that wait for Him, unto salvation/ 

" It is mentioned several times in the short epistle 
of James and several times in both the epistles of 
Peter and especially emphasized in the first epistle of 
John. In 1 John 3 :2, 3, it is said : 

'' 'Beloved, now are we children of God, and it is 
not yet made manifest what we shall he. We know 
that if He shall he manifested, we shall he like him; 
for we shall see Him even as He is. And every one 
that hath this hope set on him purifleth himself, even 
as He is pure.' 

' ' It is mentioned several times in the short epistle 
of Jude and the book of Revelation is full of it. So 
that if Paul had made no reference to it at all it 
would still be what he terms in his epistle to Titus, 
'the hlessed hope,' and at the same time it would have 
been strange for him to have omitted it." 

It was asked : ' ' Is it not the belief of some present 
day Christians that Paul and the early Church mis- 
understood this doctrine, believing that the return 
of Jesus was very near, that is to say, in their life- 
time?" 

** Instead of Paul's believing that Jesus would re- 
turn in his lifetime, that is just what he said would 



276 WORKING WITH GOD 

not be. Some of the early Christians believed it and 
especially those in Thessalonica. Their misunder- 
standing was the occasion of Paul's second epistle to 
the Thessalonians and he makes it very clear, show- 
ing that he did not misunderstand it, but they did. 
Let me read it to you. 2 Thessalonians 2 :l-5 : 

" 'Now we beseech you, brethren, touching the 
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering 
together unto Him; to the end tliat ye be not quickly 
shaken from your mind, nor yet be troubled, either by 
spirit, or by word, or by epistle as from us, as that 
the day of the Lord is just at hand; let no man beguile 
you in any wise: for it will not be, except the falling 
away come first, and the man of sin be revealed, the 
son of perdition, he that opposeth and exalteth him- 
self against all that is called God or that is worshiped ; 
so that he sitteth in the temple of God, setting him- 
self forth a-5 God. Eemember ye not, that, when I was 
yet with you, I told you these things?' 

''He could not have made his own position any 
plainer, and when he came to write his last letter just 
before his death, his reference to the second coming 
of Jesus throws a radiance of joy over his entire letter 
and it has become one of the most familiar passages of 
Scripture to Christians. It is found in 2 Timothy 
4 :7, 8. I will read it : 

'' 'I liave fought the good fight, I have finished the 
course, I have kept the faith: henceforth titer e is laid 
up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, 
the righteous Judge, shall give to me at that day; 
and not to me only, but also to all them that have 
loved His appearing.' 

''And so far as some present day Christians not 
believing in the promise of the return of Jesus, that is 



AN EVENING WITH THE JEWS 277 

true. They regard these promises of the return as 
due to the Messianic hope of the times and not to any 
Divine knowledge on the subject on the part of either 
Jesus or His apostles. But this is nothing against it, 
for there are some of the greatest names in the past as 
well as now that hold to this promise. When the Jew- 
ish mob in Jerusalem was about to stone Stephen to 
death he asked, 'WJiich of the prophets did not your 
fathers persecute?^ History repeats itself. So in re- 
gard to the promise of our Lord's return I might ask, 
Which of the teachings of Jesus or the doctrines of 
Christianity have not some one group or other of 
Christians sought to explain away? There is not 
one, from the Jewish prophecies regarding the Mes- 
siah in the Old Testament to the teachings, commands 
and facts in the life of Jesus recorded in the New 
Testament, but that some Christians have sought to 
explain away and frequently have met with success 
to the satisfaction of many other Christians. But 
there still remains a great host of Christians who can- 
not be led to believe that one of the most frequently 
mentioned promises in the Scriptures is based upon a 
misunderstanding. I think it was Lord Bacon who 
said that the saddest words that ever came from the 
lips of Jesus were, 'When the Son of Man cometh, 
shall He find faith on the earth f " 

A score of questions followed these. Dinner had 
been set for nine o'clock. It was now past midnight. 
We sat around the table until I remembered it was 
Sunday and I must hurry away across town to get 
some sleep in order to be refreshed for my morning 
sermon. 



Guardianship 



We are guardians of each other. Differences 
in dispositions, religion, politics and races have 
no right to destroy that guardianship. It is so 
written upon the human heart and the Scriptures 
declare that the one way to live is "not loolcmg 
each of you to Ms own things, 'but each of you 
also to the things of others." There is no es- 
cape. Right is the only standard of life. Out of 
the scandal of its neglect, out of God's call from 
our own hearts, out of the Scriptures there is but 
one voice, and that is the charge of fidelity to 
the trust, for my brother must stand guard for 
my defense and I must stand guard for him. 
Every man must be a fortress for his fellow man, 
else life is below the plane of manhood. — From 
My Brother And I. 



278 



XVI 
The Negro's Cause 



Baltimore has the largest negro population of any 
city in the world, excepting Washington and New 
Orleans, there being about 100,000 negroes here. While 
thousands of them crowd in the alleys, other thou- 
sands live on the wide streets and are said to have 
more comfortable homes here than in any city in the 
world. I have always been glad that a race for which 
I have such friendly feeling has prospered most in 
the city where I have lived for twenty-five years. Not 
that I have done anything worth while in bringing 
about any of this, although the Temple has a branch 
church among them, but it has been a satisfaction to 
me to see this problem at close range. I have heired 
my friendly feeling for the negro from my forbears, 
as have many other descendants of slaveholders. This 
was intensified by an incident that caused the death 
of my grandfather, Peter Ainslie, who was drowned 
in 1835. 

On March 25, 1834, he married for his second wife. 
Miss Matilda Gregory, the daughter of William 
Gregory, of Elsing Green, King William County, 
Virginia, and the aunt of Judge Roger Gregory. Mr. 
Ainslie and his bride went from the Elsing Green 
mansion to a farm in the same county on the Matta- 
poni River, called ''Kentucky." One of their slaves 

279 



280 WORKING WITH GOD 

had married on the other side of the river in King 
and Queen County. Mr. Ainslie sought to buy the 
slave woman from her owner, but was refused. A few 
months after the owner died and the estate was to be 
settled by the sale of the entire property, which would 
mean for the slaves to be taken to Eichmond or New 
Orleans and there sold at auction. To make sure of 
securing the wife of his man slave, Mr. Ainslie of- 
fered an amount in excess of the usual price, which 
was accepted. Taking with him the negro slave on a 
cold February morning in 1835, they attempted to 
cross the narrow river in a small rowboat to the King 
and Queen Court House landing. The boat was 
caught in the drifting ice and capsized, drowning both 
Mr. Ainslie and the slave. Their bodies were found 
six weeks after, with the amount of money necessary 
for the purchase of the slave in Mr. Ainslie 's pocket. 
Dr. B. H. Walker, a highly esteemed physician of 
King and Queen County, who was a boy in his teens 
at that time, wrote under date of December .5, 1906, 
as follows : 

''It was a tragical scene when Mr. Ainslie was 
drowned. Persons on the shore witnessed it, but were 
powerless to help. He was regarded as the ablest of 
the seven preachers, who were excommunicated by 
the Dover decrees of the Baptist Church in 1832 be- 
cause of his holding to the views of the Disciples. I 
recall the distress which his death caused among his 
friends and brethren and the feeling was that the 
cause of the Disciples had sustained an irreparable 
loss." 

But the circumstances attending his death awak- 



THE negro's cause 281 

ened an interest throughout that section of Virginia 
relative to negro slavery, causing many to consider 
the right of freedom to the negro, as to any other race. 
The slave added to his owner's wealth and the owner 
gave to the slave his civilization, and, for a century, 
the right of freedom was throbbing in the American 
life. When John Randolph, of Roanoke, was asked 
who was the' greatest orator that he had ever heard, 
he said: ''The greatest orator that I ever heard was 
a woman. She was a slave. She was a mother and 
her rostrum was an auction block." He then told 
how this black woman with thrilling voice appealed 
to the sympathy and justice of the bystanders, con- 
cluding with an indignant denunciation of them and 
the traffic in which they were engaged. ' ' There, ' ' said 
Randolph, ''was eloquence and I have heard no man 
speak like that." The appeal of the slave was the 
mightiest voice for freedom and, as said Booker Wash- 
ington, ' ' It was the faithful servants! of the Southern 
masters who were the first abolitionists. ' ' 

In spite of the passage of laws in the Southern 
states forbidding owners to set their slaves free, every 
year increased the number of free negroes. Franklin, 
Jefferson, Madison, Jay and Hamilton regarded slav- 
ery as a great evil and inconsistent with the Declara- 
tion of Independence. George Washington set his 
slaves free, as did John Randolph, of Roanoke, Chief 
Justice Roger B. Taney, of Maryland, and many 
others, so that by 1860 there were 434,000 free negroes 
in the United States. Of that number, 262,000 were in 
the Southern States and all together owned at that 
time $25,000,000 worth of property. In Maryland 



282 WORKING WITH GOD 

alone, in 1860, there were 87,000 slaves and 83,000 free 
negroes. The proportion in favor of free negroes was 
not so large in Virginia, but it was growing. Every 
year the free negro population was increasing by re- 
cruits from slaves, while the slave population was de- 
creasing because of the owners setting their slaves 
free. 

My father, Peter Ainslie, living at Dunnsville, Es- 
sex County, Virginia, was a small slaveholder, having 
twenty-odd slaves. He and my mother frequently 
talked about setting their slaves free. Alexander 
Campbell, the great leader among the Disciples and 
living then in Brooke County, Virginia, had set his 
slaves free, as others in Virginia were doing. The 
difficulty, however, in setting slaves free was in pro- 
viding a living for them in their freedom. As slaves 
they were housed, fed, clothed and, when they were 
sick, the owner's physician attended them. To thrust 
them out on their own resources was a serious prob- 
lem. My father did not have sufficient land to give 
them each a few acres of ground and what he did have 
was poor land. Even if he had, they could not have 
lived on that, while employment of free negroes in 
that community was very difficult. These conditions 
made him hesitate ; but, when the Emancipation Proc- 
lamation came, in 1863, it was a relief to him and 
thousands of other slaveholders. 

Then came the days of reconstruction in the South. 
My father's well-known sympathies for both the 
slaveholder and the slave caused him to be selected a 
member of the Court of Arbitration for Essex County 
in connection with a United States army officer. Un- 



THE negro's cause 283 

der date of May 3, 1907, Judge T. R. B. Wright, of 
Tappahannock, one of the ablest jurists in the history 
of Virginia, wrote : 

''The first time I came in personal and official 
contact with the Rev. Peter Ainslie, of Dunnsville, 
was just after the War between the States. The 
slaves were all emancipated and the Union once more 
'pinned together with the bayonet.' The laws were 
silent ; the civil authorities disfranchised — inter arma 
sUent leges. In each county a Federal officer was sta- 
tioned to rule over a provisional government or recon- 
struction government. The former slaves had been 
fed for the balance of the year after Appomattox. The 
freedmen had many complaints and personal property 
rights had to be adjusted. Therefore under the au- 
spices of the Freedmen 's Bureau, a court of arbitra- 
tion had to be appointed in every county to adjust 
these delicate matters. 

"The court was composed of the Federal officer 
and one citizen. Lieutenant Wentworth, U. S. Army, 
and the Rev. Peter Ainslie, a citizen, constituted the 
court here. It was a high honor and a position of the 
greatest responsibility for the citizen member of the 
court. It was a critical period — ^the crisis acute and 
the times fraught with danger, chaos and confusion. 
This brave, fearless, clear-headed and just citizen 
stood as a breakwater against confiscation and blood- 
shed that were momentarily threatened. He was a 
tower of strength and a bulwark of the liberties of a 
defenseless people. 

"My mother was the owner of slaves and a farm, 
and I believe that everything would have been con- 
fiscated had not Mr. Ainslie adjusted, as he did in all 
cases, the complaints of the freedmen and settled the 
rights of property. It was the highest honor and ex- 
pression of public confidence to any man during my 
day and generation. He measured up to it as a splen- 
did judge, and all of us say a benison on his name. 



284 WORKING WITH GOD 

''He was a man of faith and what he believed he 
stood for like John Knox and this is what we should 
admire in every man. He was a hard student all his 
life and when he died there was no better equipped 
man and scholar in our state. It was said of Mr. 
Gladstone that there was no decadence, but expansion 
and strength in mind and character, every day that 
was added to his life. So it was with Mr. Ainslie. 
He was a strong, able, fluent writer. He could com- 
bat error fearlessly and was polemic if the occasion 
required it. As a preacher he was logical, forceful, 
strong and able." 

After the war, many of the slaves still remained 
with their former owners. My mother's maid before 
the war, ''Aunt Eve" as we called her, was the cook 
when I was growing up. She was the embodiment of 
honor, integrity, truthfulness and piety and knew 
how to administer a spanking to me as she did to her 
own children. All of her children went to the city 
and prospered, but she refused to follow them, re- 
maining at the old home twenty-five years after the 
war and is buried there beneath the pines, where she 
had often walked in serfdom and freedom. I recall 
that when I was a lad around fifteen years, my father 
required me on the first Sunday in the month to drive 
her in the rockaway three miles down the road to her 
church. I do not remember to have objected to it 
then and I am not ashamed of it now. Because many 
among the negoes are indolent and impudent — and 
that class is far too large — it must not be forgotten 
that there are many among them that are industrious, 
honorable and courteous. A race that has produced 
such a poet as Dunbar, such an orator as Frederick 
Douglass, such a painter as Tanner, such a sculptor 



THE negro's cause 285 

as Warburg, such a musician as Blind Tom, such, a 
musical composer as Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, such 
a teacher as Booker Washington and such an army of 
black mammies of ante-bellum days, has in it lots of 
good that the abuse of the thoughtless cannot destroy. 

One Sunday afternoon two negro men drove up in 
a buggy to the yard gate of our home, tied their horse 
and started up the walk to the house. I was a small 
boy standing by my father in the front door. Neither 
of us recognized the men, for they appeared to be 
strangers. My father, however, had scarcely descended 
the steps to the ground to meet them, when both of 
them ran to him with all their might, taking him up 
in their arms, both hugging him at once and the 
faces of all three were wet with tears. They were 
two of his former slaves who had gone away to the city 
after the war and, hearing that my father had a seri- 
ous illness, they made their journey of several hun- 
dred miles to see him once more. Many such scenes 
like these came into my boyhood life, making it im- 
possible for me to think other than kindly of the 
negro. I never go back to the old church of my 
boyhood — Rappahannock Church, at Dunnsville, Vir- 
ginia, for a series of meetings — but I ask for half of 
the gallery to be given to the colored people, to whom 
I address in particular a part of my message bearing 
on their problems, and it has always been approved 
by the community. 

This is God's continent and not the Anglo-Saxon's. 
He made of one every nation of men to dwell on all 
the face of the earth. American slavery was the way 
of the African to freedom. In slavery he not only 
became a valuable economic asset to America, but he 



286 WORKING WITH GOD 

"was lifted out of his uncivilization by coming in toucli 
with his civilized, and in many instances, cultured 
owner, which unconsciously, both to himself and 
owner, was preparing him for freedom. We cannot 
keep down the negro or any other race without staying 
down ourselves to keep them down. It is both an 
opportunity and an obligation that has come to no na- 
tion in the history of the world as to the American Re- 
public. Unless it was a misguided judgment that 
brought the Pilgrims to Plymouth Rock and the Cav- 
aliers to Jamestown, only then might it be said that it 
was a misfortune that brought that Dutch slave ship in 
1619 to drop anchor in the Virginia waters. We are 
proud of Plymouth Rock and Jamestown; but to be 
true to our task, we must be no less proud of those ship 
loads of Africans, in all more than three millions, that 
came through serfdom to America, as well as those 
streams of many more millions that have come from 
across the Atlantic. 

On one occasion the colored Y. M. C. A. in Balti- 
more arranged a series of six meetings for men in one 
of the large colored churches. Six white preachers 
were invited to deliver the addresses on successive 
Sunday afternoons. I was invited to deliver the last 
address in the series. A few weeks before the series 
was to begin the secretary, who was a bright mulatto 
from the North, learned that I was a Southerner. He 
forthwith called on me, thinking that perhaps I did 
not understand that it was an address to be delivered 
to colored people, and offered to relieve me of the en- 
gagement. But I insisted on holding to it. He looked 
disappointed and a few days after wrote me a courte- 



THE negro's cause 287 

ous letter, informing me that if I had changed my 
mind it would not embarrass the committee ; but inas- 
much as I had not I expressed to him my preference 
to keep the engagement. 

The afternoon came. The church was crowded. 
I took my seat on the platform. An American negro 
audience is always a sad picture to me. The great 
number of mulattoes reveals the looseness of morals 
between the white and colored people. The greater 
shame is on the white men who are the fathers and 
grandfathers of these mulattoes and if any serious 
clash ever comes in this country between the white 
people and negroes, it will be through the instigation 
of the mulattoes, many of whom are too nearly white 
to be contented with the racial barrier. Perhaps a 
third or half of the audience was of pure negro blood 
and among them were some of my father's former 
slaves and others whom I had grown up with. 

In introducing me, the secretary apologized for my 
being from the South and, as a hint as to how I 
should speak, he proceeded to tell them what I would 
say. After consuming ten minutes or more in doing 
this he took his seat. I arose and said, ' ' I am not going 
to talk that way at all. I don't propose to talk 
about the problems of the human race. I am going 
to talk about the problems of the colored race. I 
know you better than your secretary knows you. I 
grew up in Virginia with some of you who are here 
and I am your friend." They responded warmly to 
the address, which surprised the Northern secretary 
greatly and perhaps gave me a little more gratifica- 
tion of my victory over him than whatever satisfac- 
tion I may have given the audience. As I was leav- 



288 WORKING WITH GOD 

ing the church after the meeting was over, an aged 
colored man gave me a cordial grasp of the hand and 
offered me what he considered the highest compliment, 
and I so took it with a gracious bow of appreciation, 
when he said, "Don't you pay no 'tention to dat sec'- 
tary. You knows mo 'bout we-all den all dem stran- 
gers dat is been talkin' to us, 'cause you is one ov us, 
an' you preaches jest like Bre' Zachariah Austin at 
Macedonia Colored Baptist Church. ' ' 

At the beginning of the nineteenth century Eng- 
land had in all her colonies 800,000 slaves, France had 
250,000 ; Holland had 50,000 ; Denmark had 27,000 ; 
Brazil had 2,000,000 and the United States 900,000, 
while Africa was a continent of slaves and uncivilized 
nations. In the course of time all of these were set 
free. It was an inevitable evolution of racial inde- 
pendence. New York and other states passed laws 
permitting slaves to enlist in the Continental Army 
and at the end of the service to go free. The effect 
would doubtless have been even greater, if not the 
abolition of slavery at that time, had not Eli Whitney 
about the same time invented the cotton gin. In- 
stantly the value of negro slaves increased and slav- 
ery took deep hold as a necessity in the economic life 
of the South. Then followed the regime of the over- 
seers and that cruelty on great plantations that stirred 
the heart of the nation and made the abolition of slav- 
ery a necessity for the perpetuation of the Republic, 
but it came about in the wrong way. Once an edu- 
cated and cultured negro from Jamaica called at my 
office. I was so impressed with him that I invited 
him to speak in my pulpit, which he did. In conversa- 




CHRISTIANS AND INQUIRERS, WUIIU, CHINA 
Fourth Branch Church. 




IMMIGRANT WORK AND WORKERS 

Ninth Branch Church. 




HOFFMAN STREET COEORKD CHURCH 
Tenth Branch Church. 



THE negro's cause 289 

tion with liim covering a wide range of subjects, I 
asked him why it was that the white and colored 
people in Jamaica got along so well together, while 
in the United States we were having friction con- 
stantly. He replied: ''That answer is very simple. 
You see, sir, we got our freedom without war, whereas 
in the United States the negroes got their freedom 
by war and then for a time they were put over the 
white people to whom they formerly belonged. Con- 
sequently you will necessarily have friction in the 
States for hundreds of years, if not always. ' ' It was 
a profound answer. 

As I read the history preceding the Civil War, I 
am often impressed with the dearth of American 
statesmen in that period and the preponderance of 
politicians and agitators, both North and South, whose 
hot words were flung back and forth at each other 
like firebrands in tinder, until the whole country was 
in a flame of passion, which the great-hearted Lincoln 
could not quell. One section of the country was as 
much to be blamed as the other. The men in the 
North and the men in the South who precipitated the 
war were not the men who went into battle, but two 
great armies composed of the best blood in the North 
and the best blood in the South laid their comrades 
under the sod until they had covered 12,000 acres. 
Since then long lines of soldiers in blue and gray have 
gone on crutches with bandaged heads and empty 
sleeves to pay respect at the graves of their dead 
comrades who died in a cause that should have been 
settled without the passion of war, as England, 
France, Holland, Denmark, Brazil and every other 



290 WORKING WITH GOD 

nation on the globe had done. I have been told on 
the best authorities that in less than ten years every 
slave in Virginia would have been set free and per- 
haps not more than twenty years when all the states 
would have yielded to the growing sentiment of eman- 
cipation, leaving the two races as friendly in the 
United States as they are in Jamaica and other coun- 
tries where statesmen and not politicians ruled. 
Emancipation brought great benefit to both the slave- 
holder and the slave, giving to both larger freedom 
and possibilities of usefulness. But the negro was 
seriously handicapped by politicians stamping the 
white man as the negro's enemy, which can never be 
erased until far off centuries forget the tragedy. A 
hundred years from now another Bancroft will write 
his history and he will not be afraid to write in 
boldest letters : The greatest mistake in American his- 
tory was the Civil War of 1861-65. 

The first public school in America was established 
in Virginia in 1620 for the education of the negroes 
and the Indians, but later opposition arose against it 
and this opposition spread throughout the nation. 
Down to 1835 it was as bitterly opposed in the North 
as in the South. In many of the States it was a 
crime to teach a negro. In both Connecticut and 
New Hampshire mob violence was resorted to against 
the attempts to give the negro an education, but after 
1865 the education of the negro began in earnest and 
in 1882 from the state of Connecticut, where fifty 
years before a schoolhouse for the education of 
negroes had been demolished, came the princely gift 
of $1,000,000 from John J. Slater for that purpose, 



THE negro's cause 291 

which was the first great gift for negro education. 
Other gifts have been made by Northern people and 
the Southern people have freely given their help. It 
is a happy condition that the nation has united to 
help into freedom a race that had been its slaves. 
The negro is advancing and, as said Henry Watter- 
80n, ''The world has never yet witnessed such prog- 
ress from darkness into light as the American negro 
has made in the period since the emancipation." The 
goal of his freedom is to find the worth of labor in 
agriculture and commercial pursuits, to be educated 
in the useful arts of everyday life, to produce Chris- 
tian character and to so know how to adjust himself 
to the spiritual necessities of the times that he will 
rise to the best citizenship as naturally as saplings 
grow to the height of forest trees. 

African slavery was established in the West Indies 
by the Spanish as early as 1501 and so antedates the 
settlement at Jamestown by more than a hundred 
years. The negro has been the white man's helper on 
this continent from the time that Columbus landed at 
San Salvador to Peary's penetration to the North 
Pole. In the picture of Peary's achievement is the 
black and smiling face of IMatt Henson, looking 
blacker than otherwise because of the background of 
snow. Negro slaves were the attendants of Balboa 
in Panama, and, under his direction, they built the 
first American ship for the Pacific waters. They 
accompanied Pizarro to Peru and De Soto up the 
Mississippi. Though 350 years have passed since 
then, the memory of De Soto's negro slave named 
Stephen is preserved in Indian folk lore tales, tell- 



292 WORKING WITH GOD 

ing of his eleven years of travel across hundreds of 
miles of the southwestern part of the United States, 
which was two centuries before the white man ever 
saw its fair fields or felt its gentle breezes. 

In Trumbull's great picture of the battle of 
Bunker Hill he has painted the black face of Peter 
Salem and the explanation is that the British were 
marching upon the Americans. Major Pitcairn had 
mounted the redoubt and called upon the Americans 
to surrender, when Salem, a private in Colonel Nix- 
on's regiment, fired upon him and he fell dead across 
the redoubt. More than 3,000 negroes were enlisted 
in the Continental Army and others fought in the 
battle of New Orleans and of Lake Erie in the War 
of 1812. It was the negro, Benjamin Banneker, an 
astronomer, who assisted in laying out the District 
of Columbia, 1791, and who afterwards, it is said, 
constructed the first clock in America. It was the 
negro, William Clark, that accompanied the Lewis 
and Clark expedition in 1804 and explored the Mis- 
souri River to its source. It was the negro, Saunders, 
who accompanied John C. Fremont in 1848 in his 
desperate attempt to find a pathway across the 
Rockies. 

When the war broke out between the States the 
free negroes lined up in defense of the Southern peo- 
ple, whom they knew had been their friends. The 
first company of free negroes was organized in April, 
1861, in Nashville, Tennessee, and they forthwith 
tendered their services to the Confederate G-'overn- 
ment. In the fall of that same year, at the review in 
New Orleans, one of the features was a regiment of 



THE negro's cause 293 

1,400 negro men. Not until the next year did the 
Federal Government begin to draft them into service. 
At the St. Louis Exposition, in 1904, there was a pic- 
ture in the Palace of Fine Arts which tells the story 
of those negro slaves who followed their masters into 
the war as bodyguards. The scene is a battle field. 
There are cannons, broken muskets, unsheathed 
swords and a heavy cloud of dust hanging over the 
dead and dying in their blood-stained uniforms of 
blue and gray. In the foreground is a stalwart negro 
bearing in his arms the dead body of a fair-haired 
young white man in gray. It is his young master to 
whom he was bodyguard. The artist has named the 
picture ''Faithful Unto Death" and the fact makes 
the tides of sympathy rise in our bosoms for those 
faithful men in black. Thomas Nelson Page has put 
into beautiful and picturesque prose the story of 
"Marse Chan" and given another call for confidence 
between the races. 

It is folly, if not treason, to cultivate mistrust and 
hostility between the white man and the negro and, 
in after years, it will have been found to have proved 
an injury to both. Negroes have accompanied us in 
our ventures of discovery. They have fought in our 
battles. They have added to our wealth by their 
labor, and their inner life has touched our lives as 
revealed in the stories and songs of Joel Chandler 
Harris. This country is ours and theirs and their 
progress is to our credit as well as theirs. 

From an illiteracy of ninety-five to ninety per 
cent forty-odd years ago, it has been reduced to per- 
haps thirty per cent, while illiteracy in Italy is thirty- 
eight per cent, in Spain sixty-eight per cent, in Rus- 



294 WORKING WITH GOD 

sia, seventy-seven per cent and in Portugal and 
Brazil eighty per cent. In property they have be- 
come lando\vners of considerable consequence. In 
Georgia alone, from ten thousand acres valued at 
$22,500 in 1860, their land ownership has increased 
to 1,450,000 acres valued at $7,975,000, while in the 
entire United States they own 30,000 square miles or 
as large a tract of land as Vermont, New Hampshire, 
Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island com- 
bined, which is valued at $550,000,000. 

In 1862 a negro slave owned by Jefferson Davis 
invented a propeller for a vessel, which was used by 
the Confederate Na\^, and since then 350 patents 
have been granted the negro. As to their activities in 
other fields, 2,150,000 are in agricultural and com- 
mercial pursuits, 50,000 in professional lines, 1,325,- 
000 in domestic ser^dce, 210,000 in trades and 275,000 
in manufacturing. They conduct two hundred news- 
papers and fifty-five banks. Sir Harry Johnston, a 
student of these problems, affirms that the negro in 
America has higher moral and intellectual faculties 
than the original stock to be found in Africa, and he 
further says that these might be made still higher 
by humane and reasonable treatment. 

In spite of this progress on the part of some, 
great masses of them live in indolence, impudence and 
sin. Since 1894, and especially since 1904, statistics 
show that crime has been on the decrease among them. 
Booker Washington says that there has always been 
less crime among the negroes in the South in propor- 
tion to their population than among the negroes in 
the North, but even in the general crime statistics they 



THE negro's cause 295 

are exceeded in this country by Mexicans, Italians, 
French and Austrians. 

Let me close this chapter with the quotation of a 
poem from the poet laureate of the negro race, for 
William Dean Howells has said that Paul Dunbar 
has attained beyond any other negro a permanent 
place in literature. This is what came from the heart 
of that negro of unmixed blood: 

''The smell of the sea in my nostrils, 
The sound of the sea in mine ears; 
The touch of the spray on my burning face, 
Like the mist of reluctant tears. 

''The blue of the sky above me, 
The green of the waves beneath; 
The sun flashing down on a gray-white sail 
Like a scimitar from its sheath. 

' ' And ever the breaking billows. 
And ever the rock's disdain. 
And ever a thrill in mine inmost heart 
That my reason cannot explain. 

" So I say to my heart, ' Be silent ; * 
The mystery of time is here; 
Death's way will be plain when we fathom the main 
And the secret of life be clear." 



Hindrances to Christian Unity 



The greatest hindrance to nnity to-day is un- 
godliness in the Church in the form of bigotry, 
sectarianism, pride, prejudice, history and self- 
righteousness. Upon these issues divisions have 
come and until these are scourged out of the por- 
tals of the Church, unity is impossible. There is 
not a communion in Christendom that is not in- 
fected -with this disease, some in one form and 
some in another, but in all there is an element of 
ungodliness that will poison the whole Church if 
it is not cured. The hope of victory is that in all 
communions there are some that are uncompro- 
misingly fighting this evil and they are fighting 
it with a heroism of soldiers on the field of bat- 
tle. Scriptural texts are frequently used to hide 
the hypocrisy of sectarianism, but its ungodliness 
has beneath it deception and deadly germs that 
spread discontent and bigotry wherever they go. 
The call from Christ to the Church is "Bemem- 
her therefore whence thou art fallen and repent 
and do the first works; or else I come to thee and 
will remove thy candlesticTc out of its place, ex- 
cept thou repent." We have long called upon 
the world to repent in order to enter the Chtirch. 
Has the time not come when the Church should 
repent in order to enter upon her task for the 
world-conquest? — From The Christian Union 
Quarterly. 



296 



XVII 
Christian Unity 



The greatest weakness of Christianity lies in its 
unfriendly divisions, because the motive of Chris- 
tianity is love. Unfriendly divisions indicate the de- 
terioration of love. In its rightful strength the 
Church has the greatest task of all time to overcome 
the world ; in its weakness this cannot be done. Chris- 
tianity has been proclaimed for nineteen hundred 
years and yet there is not a nation on the globe, the 
majority of whose citizens are identified with the 
Church, not to speak of that great multitude that are 
mere nominal members, leaving the real active Church 
in the far minority. In this country the growth of 
the Church in 1915 was only 1.8 per cent, which was 
a trifle under the increase of the population. 

Why does this condition exist? Either the pro- 
gramme of God was not to save the world in this dis- 
pensation, but simply to gather out of it an elect 
Church for the task of saving it in the next dispensa- 
tion, as in the dispensation before He gathered out of 
all the nations an elect nation from which should 
come the Messiah ; or His plan was to have the whole 
world evangelized in this dispensation as expressed in 
the commission which Jesus gave to His disciples and, 
this not having been done, indicates that something is 
fundamentally wrong with the Church. Jesus said, 

297 



298 WORKING WITH GOD 

*' Every city or Jiouse divided against itself cannot 
stafid/' Can the Church divided by impassable bar- 
riers stand at its task? is a question tfiat must chal- 
lenge every Christian, as must the other question, Can 
a divided Church be spiritual? The Apostle Paul 
said it could not be: ^'And I, brethren, coidd nxyt 
speak unto you as unto spiritual, hut as unto carnal, 
as unto hal)es in Clirist. I fed you with milk, n^t 
with meat; for ye were not yet able to bear it; nay, 
not even now are ye able; for ye are yet carnal: for 
whereas there is among you jealousy and strife, are ye 
7wt carnal, and do ye not walk after the manner of 
men? For when one saith, I am of Paid; and another, 
I am of Apollos; are ye not men?" What Paul wrote 
to the church at Corinth is eminently appropriate to- 
day. Neither I nor my brethren can attain to spiritu- 
ality, however much we in many communions may de- 
sire it, so long as the Church of which we are parts 
is torn by long established divisions, so that its scandal 
is generally regarded with complacent approval. 

The Church has put orthodoxy into definitions. 
So there is a multiplicity of definitions dealing with 
this, that and the other, all of which are of secondary 
consequence, but making it very much easier to be a 
Christian than Christ's method of putting orthodoxy 
into human conduct, when He said, ''By this shall all 
men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love 
one to another." This badge of discipleship has been 
lost — ^lost so long that many think the quest for its 
recovery is not worth the task. Whatever others may 
think, in the light of the teachings of Jesus and His 
apostles, the greatest issue of these times is the unity 



CHRISTIAN UNITY 299 

of Christendom. It was His prayer: ^'Father ... 7 
pray . . . that tJiey may all he one; even as Thou, 
Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may 
he in us: that the world may helieve that Thou didst 
send Me." More depends upon the answer to this 
prayer than upon any other one thing in the history 
of the world. This consummation must come as sure 
as blossoms come to the flowers and fruit to the trees. 
It is a biological necessity. Its surety gave lustre to 
the vision of Paul when he wrote: ''Till we all attain 
unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of 
the Son of God, unto a fullgrown man, unto the 
measure of the stature of the fidness of Christ; that 
we may he no longer children, tossed to and fro and 
carried ahout with every wind of doctrine, hy the 
sleight of men, in craftiness, after the wiles of error; 
hut speaking truth in love, may grow up in all things 
into Him, who is the Head, even Christ." The over- 
knowledge of the Church has choked its growth. It 
claims to know too much. Agnosticism is not a very 
popular word in Christian circles, but there must 
come a Christian agnosticism in the face of ultimate 
problems which we can never solve and drive us away 
from our cheap explanations until we find a vital 
faith in God and the power of a crucified love. Such 
is the task and every other field of research is of 
secondary consequence so long as faith, hope and 
love are the primary elements in human character. 

My interest in Christian unity goes back to my 
boyhood days and expressed itself generally in my 
ministry, but my increased activity in this cause dates 
from 1910. As the president of the American Chris- 



300 WORKING WITH GOD 

tian Missionary Society that year, I had to preside 
over most of the sessions of the national gathering of 
the Disciples, which met in Topeka, Kansas, October 
11-18. And such a convention as that was! It was 
during the process of changing from missionary mass 
meeting gatherings to a more orderly procedure of 
delegates, and the way men contended in that conven- 
tion one would have thought it was an issue of life 
and death, when it was trifling enough to occupy 
among men of reason only a short and frank discus- 
sion on the committee's report without any degree of 
passion. They tell me that it was the most stormy 
of all the conventions of the Disciples and I have 
never yet seen why it should have been so. If I had a 
gavel, it must have been broken. I only remember 
that I wore out all the books on the desk commanding 
order. I could somewhat see then why I was advised 
not to bring up the matter before the convention for 
some definite move in the interest of Christian unity. 
So I called for a conference of about fifty men to meet 
one afternoon in the auditorium of the First Chris- 
tian Church. 

The conference proved so pertinent as to the mis- 
sion of the Disciples that it was asked to be repeated 
an hour or so later and invite everybody. This was 
done. The church was crowded. Questions freely 
came from the floor. R. A. Long, of Kansas City, 
president of the Christian Board of Publication, of- 
fered to give twenty thousand dollars in the publica- 
tion of literature for this cause. Later he decided to 
reduce it to ten thousand, giving us the right to draw 
on it for conference expenses and other purposes. A 



CHRISTIAN UNITY 301 

committee was appointed to devise some plan con- 
serving the purpose of the conference. Later they 
returned, recommending a definite organization un- 
der the name of "The Council on Christian Union 
of the Disciples of Christ," with the naming of nine 
men as commissioners to be known as ''The Commis- 
sion on Christian Union of the. Disciples of Christ." 
Then a committee on nominations was appointed.* I 
thought perhaps I would be on the committee of nine, 
but it had not occurred to me that I would be the 
president. In fact, an organization such as had been 
proposed had not been in my mind. I had thought 
the whole programme that had been suggested could 
be worked out under one of the missionary boards, 
preferably the home board, known as the American 
Christian Missionary Society. But things went so 
swiftly that we hardly knew where we were until it 
was all done. Then a telegram of greeting was sent 
to the Episcopalians who were meeting in their Gren- 
eral Convention in Cincinnati, Ohio, and they in turn 
had sent a similar telegram to the Disciples, for while 
we were effecting our organization the Episcopalians 
were appointing their commission on a World Con- 
ference on Faith and Order, indicating that the Spirit 
of Christ was moving the hearts of Christians in vari- 
ous communions at the same time, for a day or two 
later the Congregationalists appointed a similar com- 



*The names recommended by the committee on nominations were 
as follows: Peter Ainslie, Baltimore, Maryland, president; A. C. 
Smither, Los Angeles, California, vice-president; F. W. Burnham, 
Springfield, Illinois, secretary; E. M. Bowman, Chicago, Illinois, treas- 
urer; Hill M. Bell, Des Moines, Iowa; M. M. Davis, Dallas, Texas; 
J. H. Garrison, St. Louis, Missouri; W. T. Moore, Eustis, Florida; 
and I. J. Spencer, Lexington, Kentucky. 



302 WORKING WITH GOD 

mittee, the Presbyterians already having a standing 
committee on ''Church Cooperation and Union." 

Although not until 1916 was the Council on Chris- 
tian Union of the Disciples of Christ changed to the 
Association for the Promotion of Christian Unity, I 
shall henceforth speak of it under the latter name. 
The commission of nine was increased at the Christian 
Union session of the convention at Louisville, Ken- 
tucky, October 20, 1912, to twenty-five. Later these 
were distributed as follows : the first nine are the com- 
mittee on direction ; the entire twenty-five are the com- 
mission on the World Conference on Faith and Order ; 
seven are on the commission on Christian unity in 
general ; five are on the commission on federation and 
seven are on the commission on international friend- 
ship.* The Association has a special session at the 
General Convention of the Disciples, through the year 
receives offerings from the churches and individuals, 
makes an annual report of its work and is as active 
as its limitations will permit. 

It was the passion for Christian unity that led 
Barton W. Stone in his evangelistic work in Kentucky, 
in 1804, and Thomas and Alexander Campbell in 



*There have been changes nearly every year, but at this writing 
the commission consists of the following: Peter Ainslie, Baltimore, 
Maryland, president; Carey E. Morgan, Nashville, Tennessee, vice- 
president; F. D. Kershner, St. Louis, Missouri, secretary; H. C. Arm- 
strong, Baltimore, Maryland; E. B. Bagby, Washington, D. C; F. W. 
Burnham, Cincinnati, Ohio; I. S. Chenoweth, Philadelphia, Pennsyl- 
vania; Finis S. Idleman, New York City; Z. T. Sweeney, Columbus, 
Indiana; B. A. Abbott, St. Louis, Missouri; H. M. Bell, Des Moines, 
Iowa; E. M. Bowman, Chicago, Illinois; C. M. Chilton, St. Joseph, 
Missouri; J. H. Garrison, St. Louis, Missouri; J. H. Goldner, Cleve- 
land, Ohio; F. A. Henry, Cleveland, Ohio; T. C. Howe, Indianapolis, 
Indiana; W. P. Lipscomb, Washington, D. C. ; R. A. Long, Kansas 
City, Missouri; Eli H. Long, Buffalo, New York; C. S. Medbury, Des 
Moines, Iowa; C. C. Morrison, Chicago, Illinois; A. B. Philputt, In- 
dianapolis, Indiana; E. L. Powell, Louisville, Kentucky; W. F. Rich- 
ardson, Los Angeles, Calif.; I. J. Spencer, Lexington, Kentucky. 



CHRISTIAN UNITY 303 

their interdenominational work in Pennsylvania in 
1809. Against the will of these men, they and their 
followers were forced into separate communions, first 
by the Presbyterians and later, when the Campbell 
section of the fellowship affiliated itself with the Bap- 
tist, by that communion, so that by 1832 they were 
separated from all communions. Instead of uniting 
other communions they themselves had been forced 
into a separate communion for advocating unity, 
which fact showed the necessity more than ever for this 
message. Because the times were intolerant they did 
not slack in their advocacy of the necessity for the 
unity of Christendom. It is the genius of their mes- 
sage. Take unity out of the message of the Disciples 
and there is less reason for their existence than any 
communion in Christendom. They stand as a witness 
for the beliefs and practices of the New Testament 
Church in order to the unity of Christendom. At 
times other issues appear to have obscured this mes- 
sage, but hosts of Disciples have been true to it all 
through the years — such names as Isaac Errett, J. H. 
Garrison, Charles Louis Loos, B. B. Tyler, F. D. 
Power, W. T. Moore and scores of others. 

The Association for the Promotion of Christian 
Unity came into being simply as an emphasis on that 
which had already been. The purpose of the Associa- 
tion was (1) to create and distribute literature bear- 
ing on Christian unity, (2) to arrange for conferences 
with other communions and (3) to seek cooperation 
for a world conference. Without changing this pur- 
pose, later the phrasing was changed, making it read 
as follows: ''To watch for every indication of Chris- 



304 WORKING WITH GOD 

tian unity and to hasten the time, by intercessory 
prayer, friendly conferences and distribution of irenic 
literature, 'Till we all attain unto the unity of the 
faith/ '' Under these principles the work of the As- 
sociation has been done. 

At the instance of Dr. Garrison the first act of 
the Association was to send out a message to the 
Disciples entitled ''A Plea for Charity and Unity 
Among Ourselves." From the very beginning at- 
tempts were made to hold conferences with other 
communions, and these were attended with more dif- 
ficulties than one would ordinarily suppose. After 
some time, however, we got into the right relation- 
ships and the conferences became very delightful and 
profitable. One of the most satisfactory of the early 
organizations that we met with was the Christian 
Unity Foundation of the Protestant Episcopal 
Church, New York, being an unofficial organization, 
with Bishop Frederick Courtney as president and 
Arthur Lowndes as secretary. It had its beginning 
in the summer of 1910. As they expressed it, their 
purpose was to be hewers of wood and drawers of 
water for those who would come after them in the 
work of Christian unity. In our first conference we 
spent two days together. At the close it was pro- 
posed by the Episcopalians that one of their group 
write ''The History and Status of the Disciples of 
Christ in the United States." Dr. Lowndes wrote it 
and it was done with such acceptability to the Dis- 
ciples that it became one of their most popular tracts. 
This was perhaps the first time that one religious 
body wrote a true and frank statement of another re- 



CHRISTIAN UNITY SOS 

ligious body, published it at their own expense and 
distributed it among their own clergy ! This of itself 
was a prophecy of better days in the fellowship of 
the Church, for such a spirit as this could not have 
found expression in any communion some years back. 
Later it was decided that the Disciples should pre- 
sent a paper on baptism and at a meeting following 
the Episcopalians would present a paper on the order 
of the ministry. F. D. Kershner presented the paper 
for the Disciples and Dr. Lowndes that for the Epis- 
copalians. It was very satisfactory to find such gen- 
eral agreement from both sides regarding both papers, 
which were written in fine courtesy and fairness. At 
another meeting with the Foundation, when we met for 
general discussion of Christian unity, it was sug- 
gested at the close that the meeting adjourn and that 
we take up as individuals the resolutions passed in 
Australia in 1906 and 1907 by representatives of the 
church of England and the Presbyterians as a basis 
for corporate reunion. We made such changes in 
them as were necessary in order for both Episco- 
palians and Disciples to sign them.* Not signing 



•The signers of the resolutions on the part of the Episcopalians 
were, Bishop Frederick Courtney, George William Douglas, R. F. Al- 
sop, R. T. Homans, Arthur Lowndes, Francis C. Huntington and 
David B. Ogden. On the part of the Disciples beside myself were, 
F. W. Burnham, Finis S. Idleman, James M. Philputt, Edward B. 
Bagby, Henry C. Armstrong, Francis H. Scott and William P. Lips- 
comb. The resolutions were: 

"1. We hold the holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament 
to be the rule and ultimate standard of faith in all matters necessary 
to salvation. 

2. We accept the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed as ex- 
pressing fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith, and as an 
adequate basis for any further formulated statement of Christian 
truth which may be needed. 

3. We agree that there are two sacraments ordained by Christ 
Himself — baptism and the Supper of the Lord — ministered with the 
use of Christ's words of institution and of the elements ordained by 
Him. 



306 WORKING WITH GOD 

them officially, however, nor committing ourselves to 
all tlie resolutions, left ns only as individuals to wel- 
come the effort to bring about reunion and express 
sympathy with the general purpose, which we very 
gladly did. But some of those at a distance, not un- 
derstanding either the spirit or the purpose, sought 
to make capital of it in hostile criticisms, one paper 
among the Disciples giving us the benefit of eight 
pages, others with keener insight and larger spirit 
wrote approvingly. We have some way yet to go in 
preparation for ripeness of spirit in the work of closer 
fellowship with others, not to speak at all of Christian 
unity. 

The first meeting that brought us into touch with 
the official commission on a World Conference on 
Faith and Order of the Protestant Episcopal Church 
was in February, 1911, in the rectory of Trinity 
Church, New York, with William T. Manning presid- 



4. That the act of ordination, when regularly administered, in- 
volves prayer and the imposition of hands. 

5. With regard to ordination, this conference affirms the follow- 
ing to be essential conditions: 

(1) Full membership of the Church. 

(2) The inward and personal call of the Holy Spirit. 

(3) The recognition by the Church of this call after due in- 
quiry into intellectual and spiritual fitness. 

6. The laying-on of hands in ordination we understand to be a 
visible symbol of the bestowal by the Holy Spirit of authority and 
grace for the work of the ministry in answer to the prayer of faith. 

7. The authority to perform an act of ordination comes from 
God the Father, through Christ the Mediator, by the Holy Spirit as 
the living agent in the Church, and is exercised through the appointed 
officers of the Church. 

8. Omitted, as it refers to the establishment of a State Church. 

9. We recognize that from very early times up to the period of 
the Reformation there was one common succession of orders, and that 
since that time the practice of ordination has been continued, and the 
act of ordination has been performed (a) in the Anglican church by 
a bishop and presbyter, and (b) in the Presbyterian church by a 
presbytery presided over by a moderator, and (c) in the Congrega- 
tional church and among the Disciples of Christ by a council called 
by a local congregation. 

10. That a union of the church of England in Australia and Tas- 
mania and the Presbyterian church of Australia be effected and con- 



CHRISTIAN UNITY 307 

ing. Members of other communions were invited, in 
all about twenty-five, including among them some of 
the most distinguished leaders in church affairs in the 
country. The purpose of the meeting was to receive a 
message from the Disciples, and at their instance this 
meeting had been called. One of the number after- 
wards said, ''We were wondering what scheme the 
Disciples had for us, but when your men spoke in such 
fraternal spirit, showing no other desire than coopera- 
tion for the good of the whole Church, we were your 
friends." Whatever good may have come out of the 
meeting, it marked the definite identification of the 
Association for the Promotion of Christian Unity in 
all the plans for a world conference. Later a meet- 
ing was held in New York City at the call of the Epis- 
copal commission. As many Protestant bodies as 
had appointed commissions were represented, as well 



summated by a joint solemn act under the authority and sanction of 
both churches, in which each church shall confer upon the ministers 
of the other all the rights and privileges necessary for the exercise 
of their oflBce in the United Church, so that from the moment of such 
union, all the ministers of each church shall have equal status in the 
United Church. 

11. That some form of individual superintendence and govern- 
ment, constitutionally exercised, is expedient for the United Church, 
and that the authority of the United Church to execute such superin- 
tendence shall be conferred by a solemn act of consecration duly ad- 
ministered on a person or persons with the title of bishop, or its 
equivalent, attached. 

12. That the person to hold the office of bishop shall be elected 
by the Church in accordance with regulations duly authorized by the 
United Church. 

13. That a bishop, in his administration, shall be subject to all 
duly enacted laws of the United Church. 

14. That the length of tenure of office as a bishop having juris- 
diction shall be determined by the United Church. 

15. This conference, while recognizing that the authority to per- 
form an act of ordination is inherent in the Church, agrees that, as a 
matter of order, in the United Church, all ordinations of persons as 
ministers of the word and sacraments shall be by a bishop and three 
ministers at least. 

And further, that in the consecration of every bishop, three 
bishops at least shall take part, and such ministers as may be ap- 
pointed for the purpose. 



308 • WORKING WITH GOD 

as the Grreek Orthodox Church. An advisory commit- 
tee was formed to cooperate with the Episcopal com- 
mission, whose wise leadership must be most heartily 
commended. 

Conferences in the interest of unity have been held 
in Europe, and many of them in years gone by, but 
nothing has been attempted on such a large scale as 
this. It is to include the whole church — Greek Ortho- 
dox, Roman Catholic, Anglican and Protestant. It 
cannot be hurried, but thorough preparation must 
precede it. For centuries we have been accustomed 
to think in terms of division and isolation; our 
thought paths cannot be turned in a day to terms of 
unity and fellowship. But it will come. Literature 
must be widely distributed in connection with sec- 
tional and national conferences, in order that the 
whole Church may move together. All this calls for 



16. That liturgical and non-liturgical forms of worship and the 
use of the Book of Common Prayer and additional forms of worship 
be sanctioned by the United Church. 

17. That there be an order of deacons or licentiates, who are 
ordained to office, and may be allowed to preach the Gospel, but are 
not allowed to dispense the Lord's Supper. 

18. That there be an order of officers whose office shall be anal- 
ogous to that of church wardens and elders, appointed to help in the 
pastoral oversight and the government of the Church with such pow- 
ers as shall be sanctioned by the United Church, and that these 
officers shall be elected by the communicants of each several congre- 
gation, and may be set apart to their office by a form of ordination 
with or without the laying-on of hands. 

Upon the passage of these amendments, the following preamble 
and resolution was passed: 

Whereas, The undersigned, meeting in informal and unofficial 
conference upon the subject of church union, have received the text 
of a proposed agreement between the church of England in Australia 
and Tasmania, and the General Assembly of the Presbyterian church 
in Australia; and a letter from the archbishop of Melbourne regard- 
ing it, be it 

Resolved: That, without committing themselves individually to 
all the resolutions, yet rejoicing in and welcoming such a definite 
effort to bring about reunion between these portions of the Church of 
Christ, they express their sympathy with the general purpose of this 
movement, and the hope that a similar effort rnay receive the careful 
consideration of the different communions of this country." 



CHRISTIAN UNITY 309 

prayer, patience and such toleration as will prove our 
sincerity both to God and our fellows. It will like- 
wise require large sums of money. On the organiza- 
tion of the Episcopal commission, J. Pierpont Morgan, 
who was sitting by Dr. Manning in the Episcopal 
convention, gave forthwith a hundred thousand dol- 
lars. This has furnished the basis for the beginning, 
but other sums will have to come to carry this work 
through. 

Three deputations have been appointed to go 
abroad in the interest of this conference. The first 
went to the Anglican church, the second went to the 
Non-conformist churches of Great Britain and Ireland, 
and the third was to go to the continent of Europe to 
secure the cooperation of all the churches there, but 
the war prevented this deputation's going, delaying 
that service except by correspondence, which Eobert 
H. Gardiner, Gardiner, Maine, the secretary, has done 
with exceptional ability. 

Perhaps I should speak here of the second deputa- 
tion, appointed in May, 1913, of which I was a mem- 
ber. Newman Smyth, for twenty-five years minister 
of Center Congregational Church, New Haven, and 
William H. Roberts, stated clerk of the General As- 
sembly of the Presbyterian Church since 1884, Phila- 
delphia, were my colleagues — one representing the 
radicals in theology and the other the conservatives, 
while if I have a place at all, it is somewhere in the 
middle of the road. While they were both much older 
than myself, I found in them that fine spirit of com- 
radeship that enabled us to do the best kind of team 
work. We went in December, 1913, and returned in 



310 WORKING WITH GOD 

February, 1914. We accomplished what we went to 
do, holding thirty-one conferences and accepting 
twenty invitations of a social character for further 
conferences. All agreed to secure appointments of 
commissions for the world conference. 

The outlook at first, however, was not so bright. 
The Kikuyu controversy was on when we reached 
England.* ^lany thought the time was inopportune 
to press the matter of a world conference, but the con- 
troversy helped rather than hindered, for it brought 
the matter of Christian unity to the front. Our intro- 
duction to England was by an elegant banquet given 
the deputation by Rt. Hon. Sir Joseph Compton-Rick- 
ett, member of Parliament, at the Hotel Metropole, 
London, in the name of the Free Church Council, 
which is an organization corresponding somewhat to 
our Federal Council of the Churches in this country. 
More than a hundred men were present, representing 
all the Non-conformist bodies in England. 

F. B. Meyer had called at our hotel early that aft- 
ernoon, informing us of the banquet and the expecta- 



*Missionaries in British East Africa held a conference at Kikuyu, 
Tune 7, 1913. These included Anglicans, church of Scotland, Africa 
Inland Mission, Friends, United Methodists and Seventh Day Ad- 
ventists. Bishop Willis of Uganda, presided, and Bishop Peel, of 
Mombasa, took active part. Looking to ultimate union of the native 
churches, they advocated a federation of missionary societies, recog- 
nition of common membership, regular administration of the two sac- 
raments and a common form of church government, Anglicans agree- 
ing to allow ministers of other communions to preach in their pulpits. 
The conference closed with the celebration of the Lord's Supper in a 
building of the church of Scotland, at the hands of two Anglican 
bishops. The bishop of Zanzibar published a vehement protest against 
the bishops of the Low Church party. The bishop of Oxford affirmed 
that the High Churchmen could not remain in a fellowship that re- 
quired them to tolerate the reoccurrence of such an incident, while 
The Church Times viewed the united communion service as of gra- 
cious promise. Kikuyu was on the lips of nearly every one we met, 
but we had no occasion to render an opinion. That belonged to the 
Anglicans. 



CHRISTIAN UNITY 311 

tion of speeches from each of us. Before leaving 
America, we had decided not to accept any invitations 
to preach or make any addresses, devoting our whole 
time to conferences around the table. Now came this 
courteous invitation borne by Dr. Meyer. It was a 
fine opportunity for introducing our work and we 
were glad to accept it. But I did not have the frag- 
ment of a speech, not even in my head. It occurred 
to me that I might find a copy of my Yale lectures in 
some bookstore, so I hastened off to Paternoster Eow. 
The first store I entered had the book and I bought it. 
I hurriedly went over what I wanted and felt that I 
was somewhat prepared for such an occasion, until I 
entered the reception room of the banquet hall, when 
the first gentleman I met informed me that he had 
recently read my Yale lectures. After meeting sev- 
eral others, another told me the same thing and then 
another, until one gentleman remarked that he had 
spent that afternoon in reading all the lectures. In 
consequence of this, there was but one thing to do 
and that was to abandon giving any part of my lec- 
tures. I began thinking — if in the midst of con- 
stant talking one can think — what I should do, when 
came the announcement that John Clifford, that 
genius for freedom and truth, would take me to the 
banquet hall. Talking as we sat together, he was so 
entertaining that I forgot I had to make a speech. 

The order of the English banquet is different 
from that in America. The toastmaster or president 
makes the first speech and leaves the introduction of 
the guests to another, who takes his stand on a plat- 
form back of the toastmaster and announces in loud 



312 WORKING WITH GOD ' 

voice each speaker, who addresses the toastmaster and 
not the man who has announced him. Besides Sir 
Joseph, Dr. Meyer also spoke words of welcome, nam- 
ing that day as the most historic in the twenty-five 
years' history of the Free Church Council. Then Dr. 
Smyth and Dr. Eoberts spoke, after which the man 
standing in the rear, preparatory to introducing me, 
bent down to me and asked, ''Are you ready?" I 
thought it was a most pertinent question and the 
humor of it from my point of view caused a smile 
to steal over my face. In my address I emphasized 
our debt to England for the Christian unity senti- 
ment and its possibility of realization as expressed in 
the prophecies and prayers of the Scriptures. J. H. 
Shakespeare, secretary of the Baptist Union of Great 
Britain and Ireland, P. T. Forsyth, principal of 
Hackney College, and J. Scott Lidgett, editor of The 
Methodist Times, made addresses. In the papers giv- 
ing an account of the meeting, among other things 
said of me was a comment on what the reporter 
termed my ' ' quaint voice. ' ' My Virginia pronuncia- 
tion has brought me all sorts of comments. Not in- 
frequently in America I am asked if I am an English- 
man, but now the Englishman was putting me in a 
class that required me to go away back into the quaint 
past. It was a notable occasion, however, and many 
spoke of its helping to unify the work of the Non- 
conformists, which is one of the greatest necessities 
in England. 

I must stop here, for this chapter is already too 
long and I will continue this same subject in the fol- 
lowing chapter, for Christian unity is the call to the 



CHRISTIAN UNITY 313 

whole Church in the terms of Divine life and human 
fellowship. Not until we recognize that the whole 
Church is in error will we be ready for the move 
toward Christian unity. No one of us can throw 
stones at the other. Our denominational rivalry and 
hostility merit the scorn of the world. We would not 
have been in this plight of a multitude of divisions 
if we had not lost the path in which Christ walks. 
When we find our common guilt, we will repent of 
our common sin r.nd find power to do the will of 
Christ. 



A Prayer 



O God of Peace, Thou art a witness to the 
divisions in Thy house which we have made hj 
our constant quarrels, and we acknowledge our 
transgression. Give us the hope of the morning 
by a genuine desire for fellowship with Thy whole 
Church, for we are brothers, feeling our way to- 
wards Thee and towards each other. Only in Thy 
light can we find the way. Without Thy shield 
we are incompetent to render Thee service in the 
day of battle and danger. Thou hast created us 
in Thine image, redeemed us by Thy blood, made 
our bodies sanctuaries for Thy Holy Spirit, and 
we desire that oneness among ourselves for which 
Thou didst plan in the ages past, even as Thou 
didst plan for the gift of Thine only begotten 
Son. In the spirit of humility and faith we sup- 
plicate Thee for patience, courtesy and brotiierli- 
ness. Then we shall love in spite of our failures 
and we shall reach the summit as our brothers of 
other communions climb to the heights. To Thee 
be all the praise through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
Amen. From The Message of the Disciples for 
the Union of the Cimrch (Yale Lectures). 



314 



XVIII 
Christian Unity 

(Continued) 



There are some memories of our experience in the 
work of the deputation to Great Britain in the in- 
terest of the world conference that somehow crowd 
for a place in this story. Some of them are purely 
personal, but all of them are suggestive. One of the 
most 'delightful Sundays was spent as the guests of 
A. E. Garvie, principal of New College, who is one of 
the foremost scholars of England. He and Mrs. 
Garvie and their children formed an attractive fire- 
side circle. She told an incident that happened when 
she and Dr. Garvie were on their bridal tour, which 
illustrates how far we have to go to find clearer skies 
for our thinking. They came from Scotland and spent 
Sunday in London. Attending services at St. Paul's 
Cathedral that morning, the preacher at the cathedral 
referred in his sermon to the Prince of Wales, now 
King George, who with Princess Mary were on their 
bridal tour. In crossing the English Channel to 
France, Princess Mary did not get seasick, but her two 
maids did. Upon this the preacher remarked, ''All 
this shows what special care our heavenly Father ex- 
ercises for the royalty in distinction over all others, 
for dear Princess Mary was not seasick at all, while 
her two maids nearly died from frightful cases of 

315 



316 WORKING WITH GOD 

seasickness." Mrs. Grarvie's fine spirit could not 
stand any more of that belated thinking. Turning 
to Dr. Garvie she said, ''Let us go," and they left the 
building. The thinking of the preacher at St. Paul's, 
however, is no more grotesque than the thinking that 
is held by vast numbers of persons in the various 
communions: who think their communion is so much 
better than any other that God gives special blessings 
to them over all others. So in their conduct they 
avoid affiliation with others who are not in the same 
circle of Divine blessing. 

In speaking of some of the opinions of the physi- 
cal world in his time Erasmus said, ''Nature must be 
very much amused at some of these opinions." If it 
were not so sad, I would like to say that God must 
be often amused at some of the practices of exclusive- 
ness on the part of some of His children here on earth. 
We sometimes speak as if High Churchmen belonged 
exclusively to the Episcopal church. It may be so 
termed according to the dictionary. As a matter of 
fact. High Churchmen are in all communions — Dis- 
ciples, Presbyterians, Baptists, etc. I have known 
some Disciples to be as High Churchmen in their 
theology as any Episcopalians I ever met and as con- 
scientious and as High Church about it as any High 
Church Episcopalians. It is more a type of mind, 
however, than of theology. Temperamental cleavages 
furnish one of the most difficult problems facing us 
and its adjustment belongs to psychology rather than 
to theology. The student of comparative religions 
seeks for a 'common origin, as does the student of 
philology for a common tongue; so in the study of 



CHRISTIAN UNITY 317 

psychology we must find a common unity, leaving the 
dissimilarities in a secondary class. Temperamental 
traits are seen in everything concerning thought, hav- 
ing back of them deep-rooted psychological facts — ^not 
that psychology had much to do with causing the 
divisions, but, the divisions having been made, psy- 
chology became a large factor in maintaining them. 
All these abnormal conditions, these mental routes of 
isolation, call for patience, prayer and the practice of 
love, especially toward those who love us not. 

In a meeting with the Churchmen's Union in the 
home of Sir Richard Stapley, where was gathered a 
most representative group of Anglicans of the Low 
Church party, the surprise was to find R. J. Camp- 
bell, then minister of City Temple, among the Angli- 
cans. He had not met with us in any of the group con- 
ferences with the Non-conformists. I had heard him 
preach on the previous Sunday a most uplifting ser- 
mon and he had written me that he would see us at 
Sir Richard 's. Although he has identified himself with 
the Anglicans since, up to that time there had not 
been so much as a whisper so far as we knew. The 
incident was sufficient to cause us to talk a little 
among ourselves. Social ties form stronger influ- 
ences in our thinking than we are frequently willing 
to acknowledge. Besides, changing from one com- 
munion to another is not attended with such severe 
mental changes as formerly. We are discovering that 
one may change his theology without in the least af- 
fecting his religion. I wish it were so that in those 
communions that are practically one in theology, such 
as many in the Protestant group, ministerial ex- 



318 WORKING WITH GOD 

changes would become frequent. It would help to 
break down those barriers that are purely artificial 
and so unnecessary. I recognize of course at this time 
that a change from a Non-conformist to an Anglican 
is somewhat severe, but the time must come when that 
severity will be smoothed down. The religion of 
Christ is to get all of these kinks out of our thinking 
as well as out of our conduct. The pulpit must be- 
come a common desk, where all ministers of the Gos- 
pel can preach, and church membership must be on 
such a common basis that all Christians can meet at 
the Lord's Supper with equal freedom and fellow- 
ship. Not until then shall the Church attain unto 
the first things in preparation for the world conquest. 
Our meeting with the Swanwick Fellowship men 
was interesting. It numbers about three hundred 
young ministers of the Non- Anglican churches, who 
have bound themselves together prayerfully "in the 
light of all new knowledge and scientific methods to 
reexamine and, if need be, reexpress for our own 
time the fundamental affirmations of the faith," de- 
siring ''to cultivate a new spiritual fellowship and 
communion with all branches of the Christian 
Church."* The Anglicans also have a similar fel- 



*The covenant of the Swanwick Fellowship is as follows: "In 
view of the challenge of the whole world to the Christian Church in 
our day, in the light of which we have come to realize the distrac- 
tions and feebleness of our state, and in obedience to what we be- 
lieve to be the sure leading of our Lord, we are determined diligently, 
prayerfully, and corporately to seek after the glorious Will of God 
for us in our generation, and gladly to take upon us all the loyalties 
implied in the discipleship of Jesus Christ at whatever cost; to redis- 
cover for ourselves those great liberties and verities of our tradition 
which have grown old and stale; to gather from the Church in all 
ages all that may be known of Christ in His familiar dealings with 
His people; to search after a new way of life according to Faith, Obe- 
dience, and Holiness. We are of those who look for His appearing, 
and are set to explore what is the greatness of God's power to us- 
ward who believe according to the power of the resurrection. Hence: 



CHRISTIAN UNITY 319 

lowship. While ecclesiastical barriers hinder these 
fellowships meeting together, nevertheless at their 
summer encampments they arrange it so that they get 
together socially and feel the consciousness of com- 
munion with our common Lord. This later fellow- 
ship has produced a book entitled ''Foundations,'* 
being a statement of Christian belief in terms of mod- 
ern thought by seven Oxford men.f This book ap- 
peared several months before we reached England and 
it was quite freely discussed at that time, some con- 
sidering it the most awakening contribution from 
theological Oxford since the appearance of ''Lux 



1. We are determined in the light of all new knowledge and sci- 
entific method to reexamine and, if need be, reexpress for our own 
time the fundamental affirmations of the faith. 

2. We are determined critically and closely to examine all mat- 
ters concerning our Free Church life and practice in the spirit of 
filial loyalty and of that freedom and independence which is our 
inheritance as members of a body guided of the Spirit. 

3. We are determined to face to the full our liability for the 
furtherance of the Gospel at home and abroad, and for the fulfilment 
of the law of Christ in all human relations — social, economic, and 
international. 

4. We are determined to inquire into and appropriate the ex- 
perience of all saints concerning the practice of the Presence of God, 
the conditions, rules, and graces of holy living. 

Our desire is to cultivate a new spiritual fellowship and com- 
munion with all branches of the Christian Church; our hope is of a 
Free Church so steeped in the spirit and traditions of the entire 
Church Catholic as to be ready in due time for the reunion of Chris- 
tendom. 

tThe names of the men are: B. H. Streeter, B. Brook, W. H. 
Moberly, R. G. Parsons, A. E. J. Rawlinson, N. S. Talbot and W. 
Temple. 

"Our method of inquiry will be that of corporate prayer and 
thought. We shall propagate our life by prayer, by loyal service in 
the ordinary activities of the Church, by the publication of such lit- 
erature of all kinds as may seem required, and by any other means. 

"In humility we recognize that our Fellowship derives from those, 
living and dead, who have been our fathers in God, and that we are 
but a few among the many of our own time, within and without the 
churches, to whom God is revealing more and more the truth we 
dimly see. 

"While maintaining the freedom of our Fellowship, we take upon 
us this Covenant as Churchmen, believing in the continuous exist- 
ence through the ages of that wonderful and sacred mystery which is 
the Church, and with the sole ambition to serve the Church in the 
love of men and in obedience to God in Whom alone is our confidence 
for all these things." 



320 WORKING WITH GOD 

Mundi." It was edited by B, H. Streeter, dean of 
Queen's College, Oxford, who has since then brought 
forth a valuable book entitled ''Restatement and Re- 
union." All this indicates that the trend of English 
thought is towards unity. 

I wish I could speak of the days at Oxford when 
we were the guests of "W. B. Selbie, principal of Mans- 
field College, and at Cambridge when we were the 
guests of John Skinner, principal of Westminster Col- 
lege, especially the day spent in the home of C. A. 
Scott, professor in Westminster College. From a 
small church near there C. H. Spurgeon went to his 
London pastorate, which in a short while became one 
of the leading pulpits of the world. Many interest- 
ing memories cluster there regarding the great Baptist 
preacher, whose sermons are still published every week 
in London. I wish I had space to speak of the cour- 
tesies from Sir Robert Perks, Althestan Riley and 
many others, but I must close this account with relat- 
ing our experience in Scotland and the meeting with 
the Anglicans. 

Edinburgh is the capital of Presbyterianism. The 
Episcopal church is the State church in England and 
others are Non-conformists, including Presbyterians, 
while in Scotland the Presbyterian church is the State 
church and all others are Non-conformists, including 
the Episcopal church, reminding me of the Jews in 
Utah, where they are classed among the Gentiles, 
for all are Gentiles other than IMormons. What is 
still more interesting, when the King is in England, 
he is an Episcopalian, when in Scotland he is a Pres- 
byterian, attended by Episcopal and Presbyterian 



CHRISTIAN UNITY 321 

chaplains respectively. One of the most charming 
hosts in Edinburgh was Sir Alexander R. Simpson, 
then close on to eighty years of age, distinguished in 
the world of medicine and rich in honors. When the 
Ninth International Medical Congress met in Wash- 
ington in 1887, Sir Alexander published for distri- 
bution to the members of the congress the Gospel of 
Luke and the book of Acts, under the title "Christ 
and the Beginnings of Christianity, by a Physician of 
the First Century." Some of the physicians, after 
hurriedly glancing through it, asked Sir Alexander if 
he were the author of it. Sir Alexander enjoyed tell- 
ing this joke. His uncle, Sir James Y. Simpson, was 
the first physician in Scotland to receive baronetcy. 
When told of it Dr. Guthrie replied, ''They ought to 
make you a duke." When visited in his last illness, 
he was asked what he considered his greatest discov- 
ery, to which he replied, ''That I am a sinner and 
that Christ is my Saviour." Sir Alexander bore the 
same spirit, humble, kind and gracious, whether din- 
ing at his table or accompanying you on the street. 
One of the rare men in Scotland is Alexander Whyte, 
minister of Free St. George's. He was profoundly 
interested in the unity problem among the followers 
of Christ, especially as it related to the union of Pres- 
byterians in Scotland. He said as we entered the 
building, "I think this is the first time that repre- 
sentatives from all the branches of Presbyterianism 
in Scotland have met together. ' ' A somewhat similar 
remark was made of the Methodists by Henry Haigh, 
who presided at a meeting of all the Methodist bodies 
in the Wesleyan Central buildings, indicating a readi- 



322 WORKING WITH GOD 

ness on the part of some who are waiting for the op- 
portunity. Dr. Barbour, Professor Simpson and 
others were our hosts there. On meeting Lord Bal- 
four he said, ' ' You are the only one in this deputation 
bearing a Scotch name. You must be of our kin." 
National ties are strong, but stronger ties are to be 
found in a new internationalism founded upon the 
blood kin of Christ. 

Returning to London, our meeting with the An- 
glicans was significant. Many had said to us that 
would be the only meeting where we would lose time, 
but it was not so. Things were somewhat formal and 
stagey at the beginning, but it was one of the freest 
conferences we had. We were glad to tell them that 
in all the conferences we had held we had not heard 
one unkind expression against the church of England, 
but in many instances real affection for it. Passing 
from one phase of the subject to the other, the bishop 
of Oxford paid a fine tribute to Dr. Smyth, and after 
some other things were said, I asked the presiding 
bishop, who was the bishop of Bath and Wells, "My 
lord, how long before you will be willing to meet with 
the Non-conformists in conference V For a moment or 
two it appeared not to have been the proper question. 
I was almost sorry that I had asked it, but I could not 
help it. There was a pause around the table. Then 
the lord bishop said, ' ' In two or three years we ought 
to be able to hold such a conference." I thought that 
was better than two or three hundred years, for there 
had been no such conferences since the passage of the 
Act of Uniformity in 1662. That day it was decided 
to meet with the Non-conformists three Aveeks from 



CHRISTIAN UNITY 323 

that date and the conference was held in the historic 
Jerusalem chamber of Westminster Abbey, which has 
been followed by other conferences. When men think 
apart their differences appear far greater than when 
they think together, indicating that many of our bar- 
riers are superficial. Sometimes when men have at- 
tempted to think together, they have sought con- 
troversy as the way out of their differences. With 
this understanding, one of the reporters of a daily 
paper called at our hotel the first day we reached 
London and in the interview he asked, ^'This world 
conference then is to face the problems and fight them 
out?" ''No," said Dr. Smyth, ''we are going to 
face the problems and find them out. ' ' To find what 
each communion holds in common with all Christen- 
dom and what it holds as a special trust will furnish 
one of the most important fields where adjustments 
are already possible. 

But coming back to the work of the Association 
for the Promotion of Christian Unity with other com- 
munions, it is interesting to observe our approach to 
the Presbyterians from whose household the Disciples 
came. March 23, 1916, promises to be as historic a 
day in marking the first step toward better relations 
between the Presbyterians and the Disciples as Sep- 
tember 7, 1809, was historic in marking the separation 
of Thomas Campbell and those associated with him 
from the Presbyterian household. The Presbyterians 
represented their committee on Church Cooperation 
and Union, while the Disciples represented their com- 
mission on Christian Unity, being one of the commis- 
sions in the Association for the Promotion of Chris- 



324 WORKING WITH GOD 

tian Unity. We had met in Philadelphia on a pre- 
\dons occasion more than a year before, but this later 
meeting in the same city was of such fine spirit under 
the leadership of William H. Roberts, the Presby- 
terian chairman, that without any previous prepara- 
tion there was drawn up such "A Declaration of 
Agreement" as marked the friendship of the two 
bodies for each other, just as years ago the ''Declara- 
tion and Address" marked their disagreements. 

Once again the Disciple slogan, "Where the Scrip- 
tures speak, we speak; and where the Scriptures are 
silent, we are silent, ' ' found a place in the *' ' Declara- 
tion of Agreement" with the cordial consent of both 
sides and this time at the instance of the Presbyterians. 
Without any discussion of it, this slogan passed to 
its larger catholicity, emphasizing especially the spirit 
of love, toleration and freedom so abundant upon the 
pages of the New Testament. Both groups, Presby- 
terians and Disciples, being Christian men, desired 
to find such paths of reconciliation as might bring us 
into closer fellowship and cooperation. Before the 
conference started Z. T. Sweeney said to me, "We 
don 't want to sign any papers in this meeting. ' ' After 
the conference had gone on for several hours with 
marked courtesy and frankness, the "Declaration of 
Agreement" was presented, having been prepared in 
the meantime by a committee, and Dr. Sweeney was 
the first to take the floor in its advocacy, showing 
how differently we look at things after we have sat 
together, gotten a better understanding of the other 
man, given him a better understanding of ourselves 
and remembered that Gk)d has a place in all these 



CHRISTIAN UNITY 325 

attempts towards reconciliation. The '^ Declaration 
of Agreement ' ' reads as follows : 

A Declaration as to Points of Agreement between 
the Disciples of Christ and the Presbyterian Church 
in the U. S. A. 

The Committee on Church Cooperation and Union 
of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. and the 
Commission on Christian Unity of the Disciples of 
Christ unite in this joint declaration and agreement 
as to matters of common interest. 

1. Both churches admit to the Lord's table all per- 
sons who have made profession of faith in and obedi- 
ence to Jesus Christ as the only Divine Saviour, and 
have been baptized in the name of the Father, the 
Son and the Holy Ghost. 

2. Both churches recognize the right of each 
church to ordain persons to the ministry of the Word 
in accordance with the conditions named by each 
church respectively, and maintain that the ministry 
of the Word is an office of the Church universal. They 
further unite in the judgment that ministers of the 
Word have the right to perform the functions of their 
sacred office as opportunity may afford. 

3. Both churches hold that the officers of a local 
church are ruling elders and deacons. 

4. Both churches hold that all persons who believe 
in, follow, and obey Jesus Christ as the Divine Lord 
and Saviour, are members of the Christian Church 
Universal and Catholic. 

5. Both churches hold that the Holy Scriptures 
are the only infallible rule of faith and practice. 
''Where the Scriptures speak, we speak. Where the 
Scriptures are silent, we are silent."* 

*For the Presbyterians the following signed the "Declaration of 
Agreement": William H. Roberts, Philadelphia, Pa.; Ruben H. Hart- 
ley, Quincy, 111.; William McKibbin, Cincinnati, O. ; J. D. Moffett, 
Washington, Pa.; William H. Black, Marshall, Mo.; William J. Darby, 
Evansville, Ind.; George Reynolds, New York City; and E. E. Beard, 
Ivebanon, Tenn. For the Disciples, the following beside myself: Z. 
T. Sweeney, Columbus, Ind.; Finis S. Idleman, New York City; M. 
M, Amunson, Brooklyn, N. Y. ; Edward B. Bagby, Washington, D. C. ; 
H. C. Armstrong, Baltimore, Md.; and I. S. Chenoweth, Philadelphia, Pa. 



326 WORKING \VITH GOD 

This "Declaration of Agreement" was presented 
with approval to the General Assembly of the Pres- 
byterian Church in the U. S. A. at its meeting in 
May, 1916, and likewise to the General Convention 
of the Disciples in October, 1916. A few months later 
another conference was held in St. Louis and it was 
recommended (1) that in those communities where 
the Presbyterians and Disciples have representation, 
efforts be made for closer cooperation, especially by 
conferences between the ministers and congregations, 
and (2) that a deputation of not less than five per- 
sons from each communion be sent to their respective 
national gatherings. 

While the Disciples are not bound historically to 
the Congregationalists as they are to the Presby- 
terians, nevertheless there is a marked similarity in 
the origin of the two bodies. Concerning this, in a 
paper jointly prepared by H. C. Armstrong, repre- 
senting the Disciples, and H. C. Herring, representing 
the Congregationalists, I quote the opening para- 
graph, which finely states this similarity: "In the 
matter of historical purpose and origin there is a most 
striking parallel. Both were at the outset definitely 
and avowedly reform movements, having the same 
purpose in view and following the same general 
method. What the Separatist and Independent 
movements undertook to do in England, and con- 
tinued to do in New England, the Disciple movement 
undertook to do in the region where it began ; namely, 
to deliver the Church from the trammels of ecclesi- 
asticism, tradition and superstition, and to restore 
the purity and simplicity of the New Testament order. 



CHRISTIAN UNITY 327 

In this we see at work in both bodies the same spirit 
operating through the same general methods, with 
this difference — the Congregationalist reform was 
aimed at the political ecclesiasticism of the age and its 
attendant evils, doctrinal and social; while the Dis- 
ciple reform was aimed at the prevailing sectarianism 
of a later age and its attendant evils. Historically 
then, these two bodies belong in the same category, 
both being actuated by the conviction that in the 
spirit and purpose of New Testament teaching there 
is a basis for the faith, polity, and life of the Church, 
and both aiming at such a complete reformation as 
would bring about the recognition and adoption of 
that ideal, aiming in fact to carry the Protestant Ref- 
ormation to its logical and ultimate conclusion. ' ' 

In April, 1912, the Commission on Christian Unity 
of the Association for the Promotion of Christian 
Unity met with the Congregationalists in Brooklyn 
in a conference,* out of which came the following 
conclusions, which were published in the journals 
of both communions : 

''First, that there are no essential differences of 
faith which need keep Congregationalists and Dis- 
ciples apart. 

''iSecond, that our respective polities have so 
many points of resemblance that no elaborate recon- 
structions would seem necessary to bring congrega- 
tions of the two bodies into working harmony. 

' ' Third, two practical steps were suggested for the 
initiation of this closer affiliation: (1) Where there 
are two churches, one of the Disciples and the other 

*At this meeting J. H. Garrison presided and the Congregation- 
alists present were, Newman Smyth, Williston Walker and Nehemiah 
Boynton; the Disciples beside the chairman a'nd myself were, F. W. 
Burnham, Finis S. Idleman, J. M. Philputt and F. M. Bowman. 



328 WORKING WITH GOD 

of the Congregationalists, in a community where the 
conditions justify the existence of only one, these two 
churches might agree to worship as one congregation, 
and unite in the support of one minister. (2) That 
the members thus uniting for greater efSciency be 
enrolled as members of their respective bodies, and 
their missionary offerings forwarded through such 
boards or societies as each may elect. Furthermore, in 
order that the standing of the common minister may 
be deemed regular in them both, it is desirable that 
the Congregationalists and the Disciples should give 
each other recognition and regularity of standing as 
ministers of Christ." 

This resulted in the union of several local congre- 
gations in the West and several friendly exchanges on 
various occasions. At a conference held in January, 
1917, in New York, the following recommendations 
were unanimously adopted : 

''First. — That a joint paper setting forth the rela- 
tions between the Congregationalists and Disciples be 
prepared by Dr. H. C. Herring and Dr. H. C. Arm- 
strong and that when approved by the members of 
the two commissions, it be circulated in their respec- 
tive communions. 

''Second. — That we encourage a larger coopera- 
tion on the part of the Congregationalists and Dis- 
ciples in those communities where they have repre- 
sentatives, by mutual conference between the ministry 
and laity and such cooperation of local congregations 
as will make evident to all a desire and intention of 
these bodies of Christians to work in harmony with 
each other, and that Dr. H. C. Herring and Dr. F. "W. 
Burnham act as a Committee to take up this matter 
with the Home Missionary Boards of the two com- 
munions and in any other ways that may seem wise to 
them. 



CHRISTIAN UNITY 329 

"Third. — That in consequence of these agree- 
ments, we shall send representatives to the national 
gatherings of each commnnion bearing messages of 
greeting and assurance of fellowship. 

''Fourth. — That a joint meeting of a larger dele- 
gation from each communion be held in New York 
City in January, 1918, arrangements to be made by 
the chairman of the two commissions on unity. ' ' 

Conferences have been held with the Northern 
Baptists and with the Christians. With the Baptists 
before they divided on the slavery question a part of 
the Disciples was affiliated for a while. On one occa- 
sion I asked Shailer Mathews what was the greatest 
hindrance to the union of Baptists and Disciples. His 
reply was, ' ' Prejudice and history. ' ' The Christians 
referred to had their rise about the time of the Dis- 
ciples. A part of their movement was under the 
leadership of Barton W. Stone, who, in identifying 
himself with the Campbells was unable to take with 
him all of his followers, and the answer of Dr. 
Mathews might apply with equal pertinency there. 
The purpose of these conferences has been to remove 
misunderstandings and cultivate friendliness. Other 
conferences have been held with groups representing 
various communions and as I have had opportunity 
and time I have gone in various colleges and semi- 
naries speaking in behalf of Christian Unity. The 
Christian Umon Quarterly, having among its con- 
tributors persons in all the communions, goes around 
the world with its message of freedom, for no one is 
restricted in his speech; with its message of tolera- 
tion, for no one is adversely criticised for his views; 
and with its message of prayer, for there can be no 



330 WORKING WITH GOD 

advance toward ourselves or toward God without 
moving in the atmosphere of prayer. 

To meet the problems of this age — so complex and 
multiplied — there must be a united Church. No com- 
munion can do its best working alone, whereas work- 
ing together not only the best work will be done, but 
the highest results will be attained. The sin of 
worldliness expressed in greed, intemperance, lust, 
extravagance, selfishness, social injustice and other 
multiplications of gigantic defiance to holiness and 
God cannot be brought to repentance and pardon by 
any other than a Church spiritually and organically 
one in life and purpose. I do not mean a Church 
modeled after the machinery of the Roman Catholic 
church. We had that once; we shall not have it 
again. I do not mean a Church with every man doing 
that which is right in his own eyes. We have that in 
Protestantism and we want something better. But 
there must be a Church where the life of Christ can 
manifest itself to a lost world in the power of love, 
unity and holiness, ''making the condition of her 
communion no more than our Saviour did of disciple- 
ship." For this Christ waits upon us to whom He 
has committed the task. The world wearily plods its 
way, looking here and there for hope to help. Out of 
the spiritual throb beats of the times I hear the 
prayer, *^ Return, Lord, Jww long?'' 

In the Lord's own time the Association for the 
Promotion of Christian Unity will be endowed as col- 
leges and universities are. It ought to be now. 



The Way to Disarmament 



There is a formal and a vital element in the 
religion of Christ. It is this vital element that 
is so costly and it is this that comes in for em- 
phasis in these days. Christianity is now facing 
the greatest opportunity in its history. It must 
not be ashamed to acknowledge the transgression 
of war, and every other sin against which Christ 
testifies. For the Church herself to go up to the 
Sermon on the Mount and lift the world with her 
to those heights, exceeds in splendour any achieve- 
ment ever dreamed of except by Christ and His 
apostles and prophets. Napoleon's most daring 
programmes are like schoolboy battles by the side 
of it. Christ calls for the finest heroism in men, 
and obedience to that call means a better world 
for mankind to live in. This will check wrongs 
as nothing else could and compel disarmament of 
every nation that dares to enroll itself in the 
league of civilization. — From Christ or Napoleon 
—Which? 



332 



XIX 

International Peace 



In the early part of February, 1914, I was return- 
ing from Europe. While seated in the reading room 
of the North German Lloyd Steamship ' ' Prinz Fried- 
rich Wilhelm" at mid-ocean a wireless message was 
handed me, announcing the purpose of Andrew Car- 
negie to further the cause of international peace 
through the channels of the Church at a meeting to 
be held at his residence in New York City on Febru- 
ary the 10th. Our ship was several days late, owing 
to a severe storm, but we docked at New York on the 
morning of the 10th, enabling me to reach Mr. Car- 
negie 's residence in time for the meeting. He was in 
his characteristically happy and congenial mood, with 
a continual flow of welcome and good humor. Twenty- 
nine persons had been called together to act as 
trustees* and the new organization came to be known 



*The other trustees are: Arthur Judson Brown, D.D., LL.D., 
Secretary Board of Foreign Missions, Presbyterian Church in U.S.A., 
New York; Francis E. Clark, D.D., LL.D., President United Soci- 
ety of Christian Endeavor, Boston; W. H. P. Faunce, D.D., LL.D., 
President Brown University, Providence, R. I.; James Cardinal Gib- 
bons, Baltimore; John J. Glennon, Roman Catholic Archbishop, St. 
Ivouis; David H. Greer, D.D., LL.D., Protestant Episcopal Bishop, 
New York; Frank O. Hall, D.D., Pastor Church of Divine Paternity, 
New York; E. R. Hendrix, D.D., Bishop Methodist Episcopal Church, 
South, Kansas City; Emil G. Hirsch, LL.D., Rabbi Sinai Congrega- 
tion, Chicago; Hamilton Holt, LL-D., Editor The Independent, New 
York; William I. Hull, Ph.D., Professor of History and International 
Relations, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pa.; Charles E. Jeffer- 
son, D.D., LL.D., Pastor Broadway Tabernacle, New York; Jenkin 
Lloyd Jones, LL.D., Minister All Souls Church, Chicago; William 
Lawrence, D.D., Protestant Episcopal Bishop, Boston; Frederick 
Lynch, D.D., Editor The Christian Work, New York; Charles S. 

333 



334 WORKING WITH GOD 

as the Church Peace Union. In an address to the 
trustees Mr. Carnegie said : 

''Certain that the strongest appeal that can be 
made is to members of the religious bodies, to you I 
therefore appeal, hoping that you will feel it to be 
not only your duty but your pleasure to undertake 
the administration of $2,000,000 worth of 5 per cent 
bonds, the income to be so used as in your judgment 
will most successfully appeal to the people in the 
cause of peace through arbitration of international 
disputes; that as man in civilized lands is compelled 
by law to submit personal disputes to courts of law, 
so nations shall appeal to the court at the Hague 
or to such tribunals as may be mutually agreed upon, 
and bow to the verdict rendered, thus insuring the 
reign of international peace through international 
law. 

' ' After the arbitration of international disputes is 
established and war abolished, as it certainly Avill be 
some day, and that sooner than expected, probably 
by the Teutonic nations, Germany, Britain and the 
United States first deciding to act in unison, other 
powers joining later, the trustees will divert the rev- 
enues of this fund to relieve the deserving poor and 
afflicted in their distress, especially those who have 

MacFarland, Ph.D., General Secretary Federal Council of the Churches 
of Christ in America, New York; Marcus M. Marks, President Bor- 
ough of Manhattan, New York; Shailer Mathews, D.D., LL.D., Dean 
Divinity School, Chicago University, Chicago; Edwin D. Mead, M.A., 
Editor International Library, Boston; William Pierson Merrill, D.D., 
LL.D., Pastor Brick Presbyterian Church, New York; John R. Mott, 
LL.D., General Secretary International Committee of the Young 
Men's Christian Association, New York; George A. Plimpton, LL.D., 
President World Peace Foundation, New York; Junius B. Remen- 
snyder, D.D., LL.D., Pastor St. James Lutheran Church, New York; 
Henry Wade Rogers, LL.D., Judge U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals, 
New York; Robert E. Speer, D.D., Secretary Board of Foreign Mis- 
sions, Presbyterian Church in U.S.A., New York; Francis Lynde 
Stetson, LL.D., General Counsel U. S. Steel Corporation, Southern 
Railroad, etc.. New York; James J. Walsh, Ph.D., M.D., Professor of 
Physiological Psychology, Cathedral College, New York; and Luther 
B. Wilson, D.D., LL.D., Bishop Methodist Episcopal Church, New 
York. 



INTERNATIONAL PEACE 335 

not themselves altogether to blame for their poverty. 
' ' After war is abolished by the leading nations, the 
trustees by a vote of two-thirds may decide that a 
better use for the funds than those named in the pre- 
ceding paragraph has been found and are free ac- 
cording to their own judgment to devote the income 
to the best advantage for the good of their fellow 
men. ' ' 

After a general discussion we had luncheon and 
then scattered to our respective homes, feeling that 
the Church had been called to one of the greatest 
tasks in her history, for the work of the Church Peace 
Union was to educate the Church into a comprehensive 
and intelligent understanding of the peace movement 
and also to use the Christian forces as agencies in 
hastening the time when nations will substitute law 
for war in the settlement of international disputes 
and base their relationships on the same high ethical 
plane which prevails between all high-minded men. 

Wars between nations had always seemed to me as 
senseless as fist fights between individuals. In my 
early manhood, the unbridled passion of physical 
force in war appeared to me irreconcilable with the 
teachings of Jesus. I read numerous books by Chris- 
tians in defense of war, but these found the major 
source of their authority in the wars of the Old Testa- 
ment. I knew, however, that the Old Testament had 
passed away so far as a standard of ethical conduct. 
One might as well advocate polygamy because it was 
practiced in the Old Testament period. Then Jesus 
had spoken very clearly in the Sermon on the Mount 
when He said: '^Ye have heard that it was said, An 
eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: hut I say unto 



336 WORKING WITH GOD 

you, Resist not Jiim tJiat is evil." War is "an eye 
for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth," and whatever 
Jesus meant by "resist not him that is evil," it cer- 
tainly was something very different from war. I was 
more confused at the general attempt of Christians 
to explain away this passage of Scripture than the 
high ideal that Jesus had set up. Had He taught 
anything else it would have been a denial of His 
whole ministry, for it appeared that the command 
"resist not him that is evil" meant simply resist not 
the evil of him who is evil with like evil of your own. 
Paul had the same idea when he said: ^^ Recompense 
to no man evil for evU." It is a fundamental prin- 
ciple in Christianity. 

I was greatly helped in my understanding of this 
principle in reading "My Keligion" by Leo Tolstoi. 
I could not follow him in all of his conclusions — from 
some I severely dissented — but I found his general 
position regarding war most satisfying and very much 
nearer to what I believed Jesus taught on that sub- 
ject than anything I had read before, or had ever 
heard preached. It served to aid me in finding a 
basis for my thinking along with the teaching on this 
subject of the Society of Friends and a few others 
here and there, such at Peter Waldo, John Wycliffe, 
Francis of Assisi, George Fox, William Lloyd G-arri- 
son and John Greenleaf Whittier. The Moravians 
have always stood for these principles ; likewise many 
among the Socialists. But I found that the Church 
as a whole stood for war and had so stood with rare 
exceptions since the days of Constantine, which 
marked the beginning of the period when the Church 



INTERNATIONAL. PEACE 337 

passed into captivity under the Roman Empire, of 
whose characteristics it signally partook, through the 
succeeding centuries, so that John Morley in his open- 
ing chapter in his volume on ''Voltaire" soberly af- 
firmed that ''more blood has been shed for the cause 
of Christianity than for any other cause whatsoever. ' ' 
This ghastly fact is almost unthinkable when it is re- 
membered that Jesus Christ is the Founder of Chris- 
tianity. I can see nothing in this departure from His 
teachings other than the greatest of all heresies, for 
returning good for evil is a thousand times more vital 
than all the creedal pronouncements since the Council 
of Nicsea. What difference does it make whether it is 
believed that Jesus is the same substance with the 
Father or like substance, so long as those who believe 
these doctrines kill each other like savages with the 
sword ? 

Hardly anything could be more extremely opposite 
to Christianity than war. Erasmus called it "the 
blackest villainy of which human nature is capable. ' ' 
It will not be disputed that the object of war is to do 
all possible injury to one 's enemy. Jesus taught that 
all possible good should be done to one's enemy, say- 
ing, **Love your enemies y and pray for fhem that per- 
secute you, that ye may he son^ of your Father who 
is in heaven.'^ It is impossible to reconcile the prin- 
ciple of the villainy involved in war with the principle 
of love for one's enemies as taught by Jesus, which 
He exemplified by praying for His murderers, while 
He was dying on the cross ; and likewise Stephen, the 
first Christian martyr, saying as he died, ''Lord, lay 
not this sin to their charge/' which must have been 



338 WORKING WITH GOD 

the first awakening of Saul of Tarsus, who held the 
garments of Stephen's murderers. Love like this has 
about it no negative quality. It has in it a moral 
militancy and a spiritual chivalry that demands the 
highest heroism — demands far braver souls than those 
who, under the passion of battle, face the cannon's 
mouth. It is lifting the battle field from the low 
grounds of fleshly conflict to that of spiritual war- 
fare. The security of nations lies not in armaments, 
but in friendships. Militarism lives on slander — ex- 
pressing suspicion of other nations. The purpose of 
its activities is to slander other nations and thereby 
prevent friendships. It is the contrast of love and 
hate. We hardly need Augustine's reminder, ''Most 
often when you think you are hating an enemy, you 
are hating your brother without knowing it." 

I was so convinced of the teachings of Jesus on 
this subject that when the United States went to war 
with Spain in 1898 I could not follow the dictates of 
my country under the famous slogan of that day, 
''My country, right or wrong; my country!" In- 
stead, I spoke and wrote as I had opportunity in op- 
position to my country's declaring war against Spain. 
When scores of my fellow citizens enlisted in the 
army, one of the Baltimore newspapers sought inter- 
views from many of the citizens, regarding their readi- 
ness to take up arms "to avenge the Maine." The, 
whole country was in a high fever of excitement. 
Only careful thinking in the years preceding this 
conflict enabled me to answer, ' ' No, I will not take up 
arms against Spain. I will be neither soldier nor 
chaplain, but if my country needs me, I will be a 



INTERNATIONAL PEACE 339 

nurse or servant to the wounded. I am willing to 
suffer and, if need be, to die, but I will not kill my 
Spanish brothers. If this means a fine or imprison- 
ment, I am willing to meet either or both. As dearly 
as I love my country I will not be forced by my 
country into this barbarous business of man killing, 
let the consequences be what they may. ' ' There can 
be no compromise with war any more than with the 
liquor traffic or polygamy. The half cross is heavier 
than the whole. Both Luther and Calvin attained 
the strength of their positions on pacifist principles. 
Later both entered into compromises for expedien- 
tial reasons and the name of the former will be for- 
ever associated with the cruelties of the Peasants' 
War and the latter with the horror of the burning of 
Servetus. War must go, as human slavery and every 
other unfair burden upon human progress has gone. 
War cannot be abolished by war. This can only be 
done by the greater power of non-resistance, which 
refuses to contend on the lower plane of flesh, but in- 
sists that the Christians' battles are on the higher 
plane of moral conflict — the severest and most dif- 
ficult, but the only battles whose results are beneficent 
to man here and hereafter. If all Christians were 
to maintain this principle war would become impos- 
sible, except skirmishes here and there among the 
unthinking masses. 

This is no new principle. It is found in nearly 
all the religions of the world. Buddha taught it when 
he affirmed, ''With mercy and forbearance shalt thou 
disarm every foe. For want of fuel, the fire expires ; 
mercy and forbearance bring violence to naught." 



340 WORKING WITH GOD 

Moses proclaimed it when he said, "Thou shalt not 
kill." Isaiah interpreted it with a boldness surpass- 
ing all the prophets when he said, "Woe to tJie rebel- 
lious children, saith Jehovali, tliat take counsel, hut 
not of Me; and that make a league, hut not of My 
Spirit, that they may add sin to sin. . . Woe to them 
that go down to Egypt for help, and rely on horses, 
and trust in chariots hecav^e they are many, and in 
horseman hecause they are very strong, hut they look 
not unto the Holy One of Israel, neither seek Je- 
hovaJi!" Jesus so put this principle into life that, 
several centuries after, one of His disciples said, 
''Even though St. Peter should descend out of heaven 
and should come to us with the declaration that we 
must take up arms for the sake of saving Eome from 
the barbarians, I would not believe it ; for the words 
of Jesus are more sure than even a miracle as this." 
Similar declarations were made by the Church fathers 
from Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Origen — every one 
down to Augustine* of the fifth century, indicating 



•Justin Martyr, who died about 165 A.D., proclaims, "That the 
prophecy is fulfilled we have good reason to believe, for we (Chris- 
tians) who in the past killed one another, do not now fight our 
enemies." 

Irenceus, about 140-202 A.D., boasts that "The Christians have 
changed their swords and their lances into instruments of peace, and 
they know not how to fight." 

Clement of Alexandria, whose works were composed in the end 
of the second century and beginning of the third, writes, "The fol- 
lowers of Christ use none of the implements of war." 

Tertullian, about 150-230 A.D., asks, "How shall a Christian go 
to war, how shall he carry arms in time of peace, when the Lord has 
forbidden the sword to us? . . . Jesus Christ, in disarming St. 
Peter, disarmed all soldiers." (De Idololatr., 19. ^ "The military 
oath and the baptismal vow are inconsistent with each other, the one 
being the sign of Christ, the other of the devil." . . . "Shall it be 
held lawful to make an occupation of the sword, when the Lord pro- 
claims that he who uses the sword shall perish by the sword?" 

Origen, 185-254 A.D., says, "The angels wonder that peace is 
come through Jesus to earth, for it is a place ridden with wars." 
"This is called peace, where none is at variance, nothing is out of 
harmony, where there is nothing hostile, nothing barbarian." "For 



INTERNATIONAL. PEACE 341 

that beyond question it was the Christ ideal. Celsns, 
the bitter opponent of Christianity, who wrote about 
176, A. D., reproaches the Christians for refusing to 
bear arms and states that in one part of the Roman 
army, including one-third of the whole, ' ' Not a Chris- 
tian could be found. ' ' 

In modern times there have been significant in- 
stances of civilized men living among savages with- 
out the use of arms. Stanley did it in Africa and 
John G. Paton did it in the New Hebrides. In 
the days of the American colonies massacres were 
common in New England, New York, Maryland and 
Virginia, where militarism prevailed; but for sev- 
enty years, until they were outvoted in their legis- 
lature, the Society of Friends in Pennsylvania never 
lost a single settler at the hands of the natives. 
Commenting upon it, Charles Sumner in his ''True 
Grandeur of Nations," said, ''The flowers* of pros- 
perity smiled in the footprints of William Penn. 



no longer do we (Christians) take arms against any race, or learn to 
wage war, inasmuch as we have been made sons of peace through 
Jesus, whom we follow as our leader." (Patrologia Grsca, XIV, pp. 
46, 988, 1231.; 

Cyprian, about 200-257 A.D., boasts that "Christians do not in 
turn assail their assailants, since it is not lawful for the innocent 
even to kill the guilty; but they readily deliver up their lives and 
blood." (Epistle 56, to Cornelius, section 2.) 

Arnobius, who wrote about 295 A.D., says, "Certainly, if all who 
look upon themselves as men would listen awhile unto Christ's whole- 
some and peaceable decrees, the whole world long ago, turning the 
use of iron to milder works, should have lived in most quiet tran- 
quillity, and have met together in a firm and indissoluble league of 
most safe concord." 

Lactantius, who wrote in the beginning of the fourth century, in- 
sists that "It can never be lawful for a righteous man to go to war, 
for his warfare is unrighteous itself." "It is not murder that God 
rebukes; the civil laws punish that. God's prohibition is intended for 
those acts which men considered lawful. Therefore it is not permitted 
for a Christian to bear arms; justice is his armor. The divine com- 
mand admits no exceptions; man is sacred and it is always a crime to 
take his life." (Div. Inst. VI., 20.^ Thus does he declaim against 



342 WORKING WITH GOD 

His people were unmolested and happy, while 
other colonies, acting upon the policy of the world, 
building forts and showing themselves in arms, were 
harassed by perpetual alarms and pursued by the 
sharp arrows of Indian warfare.'^ Continuing on 
this a Friend historian added, ''Their security and 
quiet was not a transient freedom from war. HaAdng 
determined not to fight, the Pennsylvanians main- 
tained no soldiers and possessed no arms. Therefore 
they became armed without arms ; they became strong 
without strength; they became safe without the ordi- 
nary means of safety. ' ' The betterment of humanity 
can never come by arraying brothers against brothers 
on the principle of suspicion and hate with the inten- 
tion to murder each other. There can be no honor in 
an organized effort to slaughter men. War arrests 
civilization. The principles for the advancement of 
civilization are brotherhood and cooperation. War 
destroys these, violates the ten commandments and 
denies the right of Christ to the consciences of men. 



men-slayers. "This, then, is your road to immortality. To destroy 
cities, devastate territories, exterminate or enslave free peoples! The 
more you have ruined, robbed and murdered men, the more you think 
yourselves noble and illustrious." (Div. Inst. I., 48.^ 

Athanasius, 296-373 A.D., states that when people "hear the 
teaching of Christ, straightway instead of fighting they turn to hus- 
bandry, and instead of arming their hands with weapons they raise 
them in prayer." (Incarnation of the Word, section .S2.y) 

Gregory of Nyssa, 335-395 A.D., preaches that "He who promises 
you profit, if you abstain from the ills of war, bestows on you two 
gifts — one the remission from the train of evils attendant on the 
strife, the other the strife itself." (Patrologia Grccca, XLIV, p. 1282.; 

Augustine, 354-430 A.D., declares that "Not to keep peace is to 
spurn Christ." (Migne's Patrologia Latma, XXXIII., p. 186.^ He 
holds that "defensive wars are the only just and lawful ones; it is in 
these alone that the soldier may be allowed to kill, when he cannot 
otherwise protect his city and his brethren." (Letter A7.) 

Isidore of Pelusium, 370-450 A.D., is no less outspoken. "I say. 
although the slaughter of enemies in war may seem legitimate, al- 
though the columns to the victors are erected, telling of their illus- 
trious crimes, yet if account be taken of the undeniable and supreme 
brotherhood of man, not even these are free from evil." (Patrologia 
GrcEca, LXXVIII., p. 1287.> 



INTERNATIONAL PEACE 343 

It contends for an eye for an eye and a tooth 
for a tooth and believes that vengeance belongs 
to man. It is absolutely impossible to reconcile war 
with the teachings of Jesus. One or the other must be 
denied a place in this civilization. Good will, which is 
a constructive and healing power, demands courage 
and patriotism and self-sacrifice far beyond anything 
ever developed by war, and leaves no evil in its trail, 
while war leaves a multitude of plagues. 

At one time dueling was regarded as most honor- 
able and was the one method by which gentlemen set- 
tled their disputes. It is not so to-day. The killing 
of Alexander Hamilton by Aaron Burr revolutionized 
American sentiment on that subject and dueling 
among us is now a thing of the past. A little more 
than fifty years ago men of piety, education and cul- 
ture contended for the right of human slavery, but 
human slavery is now abolished. From every point 
of view, war belongs to the past, with those practices 
that have been pushed aside by human progress. As 
Disraeli long ago said, ' * War is never a solution. It 
is an aggravation." Napoleon said, ''The more I 
study the world the more I am convinced of the in- 
ability of force to create anything durable." War is 
never the product of thought, but of passion. Fred- 
erick the Great said, ' ' If soldiers were thinking men, 
they would not be fighting men. ' ' Fighting between 
two men on the street is degrading and strangles the 
nobler heroism in men; it is no less so with nations. 
Peace principles ' ' can never be executed by cowards, " 
says Emerson. "Everything great must be done in 
the spirit of greatness. The manhood that has been 



344 WORKING WITH GOD 

in the war must be transferred to the cause of peace, 
before war can lose its charm and peace be venerable 
to men. ' ' Upon the basis of the common progress of 
the human race, courts of arbitration must supplant 
wars between nations, as national courts have sup- 
planted personal encounters with fists and knives 
between citizens. 

One of the most important moves of the Church 
Peace Union was for a World Conference at Constance, 
Germany, the first week in August, 1914. Ministers 
and members of the various Protestant churches in 
Great Britain, France, Germany, the United States 
of America, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Italy, Hol- 
land, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, to 
the number of one hundred and fifty-three, accepted 
invitations to the Conference. The Eoman Catholic 
Conference was to be held at Liege, Belgium, the week 
following. Some thought war was impossible. Others 
of us felt with Tolstoi, who wrote to the London Times 
some years before his death, that the prevailing con- 
dition in Europe made it certain that the whole con- 
tinent would sooner or later be engulfed in the horrid 
cataclysm of arms, but none of us thought it would 
begin in 1914. Of the sixty American delegates, only 
forty reached Constance — ^^eighty in all — where the 
session lasted for only a few hours. I was in the 
group that arrived in Paris a day or two after war 
had been declared between Germany and France. 
Trains were held up on the Franco-German frontier, 
so we remained in Paris for several weeks in the at- 
mosphere of war, such as many of us had never seen 
before. The American ambassador appointed several 



INTERNATIONAL PEACE 345 

of US on the committee to help the great crowd of 
Americans, many already in Paris and others com- 
ing from all parts of Europe as opportunity offered 
on every train coming into Paris. The French capital 
exchanged its accustomed gayety for a seriousness 
that at once indicated to us the gravity of the 
situation. Every day we talked with men who were 
leaving their families for the army. They seemed to 
realize that it was a fight to the death. Mothers, wives 
and children would follow their loved ones as far as 
they could, bid them good-bye and frequently it was 
said by the man in uniform, ''Only God knows, but 
I doubt if I ever see you again." In answer to the 
issue in this war, this significant poem entitled ' ' Five 
Dead Men ' ' tells the sad story : 

"First Soul — 

I was a peasant of the Polish plain ; 

I left my plow because the message ran : 

Eussia, in danger, needed every man 
To save her from the Teuton : and was slain. 

I gave my life to freedom — this I know: 

For those who bade me fight had told me so. 

* ' Second Soul — 

I was a Tyrolese, a mountaineer; 

I gladly left my mountain home to fight 
Against the brutal, treacherous Muscovite; 
And died in Poland on a Cossack spear. 
I gave my life for freedom — ^this I know: 
For those who bade me fight had told me so. 

"Third Soul— 

T worked in Lyons at my weaver 's loom, 

When suddenly the Prussian despot hurled 
His felon blow at France and at the world ; 

Then I went forth to Belgium and my doom. 
I gave my life to freedom — ^this I know: 
For those who bade me fight had told me so. 



346 WORKING WITH GOD 

"Fourth Soul — 

I owned a vineyard by the wooded Main 
Until the Fatherland, begirt by foes 
Lusting- her downfall, called me, and I rose 

Swift to the call — and died in fair Lorraine. 
I gave my life for freedom — this I know: 
For those who bade me fight had told me so. 

"Fifth Soul— 

I worked in a great shipyard by the Clyde, 

There came a sudden word of wars declared. 

Of Belgium, peaceful, helpless, unprepared. 
Asking our aid ; I joined the ranks, and died. 

I gave my life for freedom — this I know : 

For those who bade me fight had told me so."* 

Dangerous as it might appear, some of us felt 
the time was at hand when we, as delegates to the 
Church Peace Conference, should speak in the name 
of American Christianity in protest against the war. 
The day before we reached Paris, M. Jaures — perhaps 
the greatest orator in France since the days of Gam- 
betta — was shot to death because at a great mass 
meeting in one of the theaters he dared to speak 
against the war. After a lengthy conference we ad- 
dressed a note by cable to President Woodrow Wil- 
son at Washington. Then we took a copy to the office 
of the Paris Edition of The New York Herald. It was 
after midnight when we passed the guards on the 
dimly lighted streets, for only a third of the lights 
were allowed, and up the long steps to the editor's of- 
fice, where he kindly received us, saying that this 
was the first protest that he had heard from the 
Church against this horrid and unnecessary war. It 
appeared next morning on the front page and read 
as follows: 



^W. N. Ewer. 



INTERNATIONAL PEACE 347 

V 

' ' President Woodrow Wilson, 
Washington, D. C. 
' ' We, a group of American delegates to the Inter- 
national Church Peace Conference which was to have 
been held in Constance, August 2-5, but was prevented 
by the outbreak of war, and representatives of the 
Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, 
composed of thirty-one religious bodies, with seven- 
teen million members, desire to place upon record our 
profound concern for the peace of the world. We 
feel confident that you, the head of a neutral nation, 
having friendly relations with all the peoples in- 
volved, will use every opportunity to exercise your 
good offices to secure the arbitration of the questions 
at issue, and thereby if possible avert a disastrous in- 
ternational war. In the name of the Christian re- 
ligion and humanity we appeal to you in this hour of 
world need. ' '* 

It was all we could do, but we did that much. It 
was a voice of protest. The issues of this war could 
have been easily settled in court. I pity the nation 
that precipitated this conflict! Whether Germany is 
the conquered or the conqueror she will never recover 
from the scourge she has laid upon herself, except a 
democracy succeeds her present government. 

After many difficulties and conformity to military 
requirements, we succeeded in getting out of Paris on 
the last train that would be used for the public for 
ten days, all the other trains being used for the mobili- 
zation of the army. We reached London via Havre 
and Southampton. After several weeks there, we 
secured passage for America from Liverpool on the 



*The others who signed it were: John W. Hamilton, D.D., Bishop 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Washington; Graham Taylor. D.D., 
Chicago; James I. Vance, D.D., Nashville, Tenn. ; and S. Z. Batten, 
D.D., Philadelphia. 



348 WORKING WITH GOD 

American Line. No American liad a moral right to 
passage on a ship of the belligerent nations lest he in- 
volve his country in war. Graham Taylor, of Chicago, 
and I came back by steerage on the steamship ''St. 
Louis," expecting to do some work among the immi- 
grants, but to our surprise the six hundred steerage 
passengers were Americans, fleeing from the warring 
countries. They furnished a fine comradeship. We 
could not, however, occupy our bunks for reasons that 
need not be mentioned here, but instead we had to 
sleep on the deck every night in steamer chairs; 
neither could we do much at eating the steerage fare, 
but we daily divided up what we had bought on shore. 
After a fairly calm voyage of more than a week we 
reached New York, praying that America might never 
become the slave to gigantic militarism like that which 
had controlled Europe for the past decades, making 
war inevitable. No one of us, however, was discour- 
aged in the least, but we saw a greater need than ever 
for the voice of peace among the nations of the world. 
Out of the attempted conference at Constance, 
' * The World Alliance of the Churches for the Promo- 
tion of International Friendship" was formed and a 
continuation committee of about sixty was appointed, 
thirteen being Americans, twelve Englishmen and the 
remainder from the countries cooperating in the Con- 
stance conference. Being on the continuation commit- 
tee, I was in New York frequently. In spite of the 
war this International Committee has been working 
quietly at its task. Our American committee held a 
very profitable conference at Garden City, New York, 
April 25-27, 1916, forming the American Council of 



INTERNATIONAL PEACE 349 

two hundred and fifty of the leading citizens of the 
United States, representing forty different commun- 
ions. Plans are now being launched for a meeting of 
the international group on the close of the war in the 
same city and at the same time, when peace negotia- 
tions will be considered between the nations. 

It must be remembered that there is not a nation 
in the world with anything like a majority of its 
citizens committed to Christianity. Consequently it 
cannot be expected that these nations as a whole will 
now line up with the teachings of Jesus regarding 
war. As a step, however, to the higher ideal — a kind 
of halfway house — about a hundred business men, edi- 
tors, educators, churchmen, jurists, diplomats, states- 
men, labor leaders and professors of political science 
and international law met on June 17, 1915, in Inde- 
pendence Hall, Philadelphia, and organized a League 
To Enforce Peace. It will be remembered by those 
who attended it as one of the great meetings in the 
interest of peace. The whole surroundings conspired 
to the significance of the meeting, which deeply stirred 
me. Former President William H. Taft presided 
and, in speaking of the plan, he said : 

**A11 the world is interested in preventing war in 
any part of the world. Neutrals are so subject to 
loss, to injury and to violation of their rights, that 
they have a direct interest in preventing war, and so 
direct is their interest that we may well hope that in- 
ternational law may advance to the point of develop- 
ing that interest into an international right to be con- 
sulted before war begins between neighbors. The cen- 
tral basis of the plan which we respectfully recom- 
mend to the authorities who shall represent our Gov- 



350 WORKING WITH GOD 

ernment in any world conference that will necessarily 
follow the peace, is that the Great Powers of the 
world be invited to form a League of Peace, which 
shall embody in the covenant that binds its members 
the principle just announced : to wit, that every mem- 
ber of that League has a right to be consulted, before 
war shall be perpetrated between any two members of 
the League, or to put it another way, that the whole 
League shall use its entire power to require any mem- 
ber of the League that wishes to fight any other mem- 
ber of the League, to submit the issue upon which 
that member desires to go to war to a machinery for 
its peaceful settlement before it does go to war. ' ' 

The proposals* have been cordially received 
throughout the country. A second meeting was held 
in Washington in 1916. I did not, however, get to 
that meeting. The League appeared to be taking on 
too much of the spirit of militarism. Halfway 
measures are not the best things for Christians. I 
find myself more in sympathy with the ideals ex- 
pressed by the Fellowship of Reconciliation, which 
had its rise in England and many in other nations 



*The proposals are as follows: "We believe it to be desirable for 
the United States to join a league of nations binding the signatories 
to the following: 

'First: All justiciable questions arising between the signatory 
powers, not settled by negotiation, shall, subject to the limitations of 
treaties, be submitted to a judicial tribunal for hearing and judgment, 
both upon the merits and upon any issue as to its jurisdiction of the 
question. 

'Second: All other questions arising between the signatories and 
not settled by negotiation, shall be submitted to a council of concil- 
iation for hearing, consideration and recommendation. 

'Third: The signatory powers shall jointly use forthwith both 
their economic and military forces against any one of their number 
that goes to war, or commits acts of hostility, against another, if the 
signatories before any question arising shaJl be submitted as pro- 
vided in the foregoing. 

'Fourth: Conferences between the signatory powers shall be held 
from time to time to formulate and codify rules of international law, 
which, unless some signatory shall signify its dissent within a stated 
period, shall thereafter govern in the decisions of the Judicial Tribunal 
mentioned in Article One.' " 



INTERNATIONAL PEACE 351 

are in sympathy with its ideals. It is ''a drawing 
together of men and women belonging to various 
Christian communions, and of those who have ad- 
hered to no communion, who are profoundly disturbed 
by the confused utterance of the Christian Churches 
concerning war and other great social questions. To 
them it appears that in accepting as inevitable the 
present world order, we have all failed to interpret 
the mind of Christ, and that confidence in His leader- 
ship involves us in an unflinching application of His 
revolutionary principle of love." While not binding 
themselves to any exact form of words, they have set 
forth the following general agreement : 

" (1) That love, as revealed and interpreted in the 
life and death of Jesus Christ, involves more than we 
have yet seen, that it is the only power by which evil 
can be overcome, and the only sufficient basis of hu- 
man society. 

''(2) That, in order to establish a world-order 
based on love, it is incumbent upon those who believe 
in this principle to accept it fully, both for themselves 
and in their relation to others, and to take the risks 
involved in doing so in a world which does not as yet 
accept it. 

" (3) That, therefore, as Christians, we are forbid- 
den to wage war, and that our loyalty to our country, 
to humanity, to the Church Universal, and to Jesus 
Christ, our Lord and Master, calls us instead to a life- 
service for the enthronement of love in personal, so- 
cial, commercial, national, and international life, with 
all that this implies. 

''(4) That the power, wisdom and love of God 
stretch far beyond the limits of our present experi- 
ence, and that He is ever waiting to break forth into 
human life in new and larger ways. 



352 WORKING WITH GOD 

^'(5) That, since God manifests Himself in the 
world through men and women, we offer ourselves to 
Him for His redemptive purpose, to be used by Him 
in whatever way He may reveal to us. " 

The Fellowship of Reconciliation and the Commis- 
sion on International Justice and Good Will of the 
Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, 
to both of which I have given some time, and other 
similar organizations are making their contributions 
to this cause. All of these efforts for peace among the 
nations promise to be educative in the understanding 
of the angel's message on the hills of Judaea: 

''Glory to God in the highest, 
And on earth peace among men in whom 
He is well pleased." 



The Message of the Disciples. 



"Was the movement practical? "Would it 
work? To the Disciples it was a greater prob- 
lem than applied to themselves. They were ask- 
ing in their own hearts, Will the principles of 
Protestantism work? Can the Bible be made the 
sole authority in religion with the right of pri- 
vate interpretation? It had never been done be- 
fore, for the creeds as tests of fellowship were 
the living witnesses against the right of private 
interpretation. To the Disciples it was even more 
than having to do with the principles of Prot- 
estantism. They were asking, Can Christianity 
stand alone with only Christ and the Scriptures? 
This appeared to have been the first order of the 
Church. Why might it not be so again? Is He 
not sufficient for all our need? It was a time of 
deep concern. They diligently studied their Bibles 
and prayed and looked to the leadership of the 
Holy Spirit, under whose ministry they recog- 
nized the Church was living as distinctly as the 
apostles lived under the personal ministry of 
Jesus. — From The Message of the Disciples of 
Christ for the Union of the Church (YaJe Lec- 
tures). 



354 



XX 

The Witness 



As a member of that fellowship of Christians 
known as the Disciples of Christ, I believe that I have 
a distinct witness and I have not been backward to 
make known that witness. I have declared the whole 
testimony when I have said that the witness of the 
Disciples of Christ is an attempt to return to the be- 
liefs and practices of the Church of Christ as it was 
in the New Testament times, in order to find the paths 
to the union of the divided Church of Christ in these 
times. We have sometimes blundered in the witness, 
but that does not destroy the ideal to which we strive. 
This witness has no book of authority other than the 
Scriptures ; no creedal declaration other than that of 
the Apostle Peter when he said, "TJiou art the Christ, 
tJie Son of tlie living God," making Him the living 
creed and His Messiahship and Lordship the center of 
all our faith, affection and service; no name for the 
followers of Christ other than Disciples, Disciples of 
Christ, Christians, Brethren, Friends, etc. ; and no 
name for the Church other than the Church of Christ, 
Church of God and Christian Church. 

This is the trend of the whole Protestant house- 
hold, for it is as clearly the ultimate conclusion of 
Protestantism as working a problem in mathematics. 
It is an illustration of that finely expressed phrase of 

355 



356 WORKING WITH GOD 

Chillingworth, ''The Bible and the Bible only is the 
religion of Protestants." I recognize, of course, that 
the Bible is the sole rule of faith and practice with 
all Protestant churches, but the Disciples have pushed 
it to its ultimate conclusion in its creedal declaration 
and wearing of Scriptural names for both the believer 
and the Church, and it is this that makes the witness 
of the Disciples distinctive, contending against mak- 
ing anything a condition of fellowship which Christ 
Himself did not make. The differences in the Prot- 
estant household, however, are not so much in the 
pale of the Scriptures as in post-apostolic things, such 
as creedal statements, church polities and party 
names, which have nothing to do with the salvation of 
souls nor the soul's betterment and to which the wit- 
ness of the Disciples is indifferent other than it con- 
demns the perpetuation of these divisions. All these 
secondary and inconsequential matters must be pain- 
ful to the Body of Christ on earth and to the Mind 
of Christ in heaven. One may use the Nicene or 
Apostles' creed* as often as he wants to, and when I 
am in a service where either is used I always repeat 
them or preferably read them, inasmuch as I have 
never taxed my memory to hold them, but I would not 
make these a test of fellowship among either the min- 
istry or laity, or any other creedal statement, so long 
as the Messiahship and Lordship of Jesus was the 
test in the apostolic times. 

If creedal statements were of primary importance, 
Christ or His apostles would have made one. The 



*A valuable book written by twelve German scholars under the 
title "The Truth of the Apostles' Creed" says that it had its origin about 
the year 400 A. D., in a German diocese in the kingdom of France. 



THE WITNESS 357 

fact of the multiplicity of and divergence in creedal 
statements prove them to be of secondary value and 
important only as registers of thought, and in this 
realm I recognize their value. If Church polity was 
so vital, the New Testament would have been more ex- 
plicit on it, not simply leaving those meagre lines of 
democracy and expediency under the rule of the 
Holy Spirit. The fact that there are so many dif- 
ferent kinds of Church polities undermines the au- 
thority of all, showing them to be matters of human 
opinion and therefore occasions for toleration. If the 
wearing of party names had been right, Paul would 
never have condemned it so severely in writing to the 
church at Corinth. The fact of their constant use is a 
daily reminder of the divisions in the Church, for 
whose unity Christ so earnestly prayed. When the 
representatives of thirty Protestant bodies met in 
Philadelphia in 1908 to form a federation for coopera- 
tion in practical service, they unanimously decided 
to call the organization "The Federal Council of the 
Churches of Christ in America." Whatever the post- 
apostolic times hold as contributions to the Church of 
these times — and I am not ignorant of the wealth of 
those contributions — it is solely in those things that 
have their roots in the New Testament, such as free- 
dom, democracy, justice, love for others, brotherhood 
and holiness. 

This witness does not claim to be modern. It has 
about it the atmosphere of the most ancient of all the 
churches, extending back of Protestantism, back of 
Roman Catholicism, back of Greek Orthodoxy, back 
to the Church of the New Testament times radiant 



358 WORKING WITH GOD 

with its ideals fresh from the minds of Christ and His 
apostles, with their enrichment of the faith and devo- 
tion of the saints in all ages. It includes in its fel- 
lowship all the souls that have striven for these ideals 
above the decrees of councils and dictates of ecclesias- 
tical tribunals, such as Paul, Irenaeus, Chrysostom, 
Tertullian, Augustine, Bernard, Francis, Savonarola, 
Wycliffe, Huss, Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, Wesley, 
Carey, Campbell and others like these. But from no 
one of these comes authority, yet this witness recog- 
nizes authority for every one doing that which is right 
in his own eyes is disorder and anarchy. That preroga- 
tive of authority, however, belongs chiefly to Christ 
and He could not have committed to men the right to 
practice jealousy, suspicion, strife, hatred and divi- 
sion, because these things not only undermine the re- 
ligion which He established, but by the establishment 
of His religion these things were to be abolished in us. 
The good and the great souls of the past are our 
brethren and no one can take them from us. For my- 
self I neither think of their ecclesiastical robes nor 
their secondary doctrines upon which divisions are 
based. I only think of them in their primary rela- 
tions as witnesses of Christ. On the opening of the 
Christian Temple in 1905, life-size pictures of Luther, 
Knox, Wesley and Campbell were unveiled and now 
adorn the walls of the chapel. The plan was to add 
others. Under each picture is a quotation protesting 
against party divisions in the Church. When the pic- 
ture of Luther was unveiled, a Lutheran elder was 
present. At the close of the services he approached 
me regarding the printed statement under Luther's 



THE WITNESS 359 

picture, expressing doubt as to its genuineness. The 
statement is: 

^*I pray you to leave my name alone, and not 
to call yourselves Lutherans, but Christians. Who 
is Luther? My doctrine is not mine! I have not 
been crucified for any one. St. Paul (1 Cor. 3) would 
not that any should call themselves of Paul, nor of 
Peter, but of Christ. How then doth it befit me, a 
miserable bag of dust and ashes, to give my name to 
the children of Christ? Cease, my dear friends, to 
cling to these party names and distinctions; away 
with them all; let us call ourselves only Christians 
after Him from Whom our doctrine comes. ' ' 

The chapter and page was given where it was 
found in Luther's works. The Lutheran elder forth- 
with called on his pastor regarding the matter, who 
confirmed it by reading it from the volume in his own 
library, remarking as he did so, ' ' Yes, they are more 
loyal to Luther than some of us who wear his name." 
Next day the elder wrote me a letter, expressing 
regret that he had indicated some doubts regarding 
the genuineness of the quotation, and inclosed fifty 
dollars for the church. 

Having said all this regarding the simple confes- 
sion of Jesus as the Christ, as the only necessary 
creedal declaration; the wearing of His name only, 
as the proper name for all the followers of Christ, and 
fellowship with the saints of all ages, as the rightful 
limit, irrespective of denominational barriers, I have 
only touched the outer and therefore the least part of 
the testimony of this witness. The greater part has 
to do with the inner and spiritual — '*// any man Jiatli 
not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His." One 



360 WORKING WITH GOD 

may sincerely believe all that I have said and hold it 
in such arrogance of spirit and express it in such 
terms of legalism as to ''become sounding brass, or a 
clanging cymbal,' ' thereby making this witness a 
hindrance rather than a help to a better understand- 
ing in the House of God. A man's spirit is greater 
than his theology and if I am to choose between mere 
orthodoxy and likeness to Christ, irrespective of ortho- 
doxy, I would not hesitate a moment to give my pref- 
erence to the latter. Writing of Francis, Eenan said, 
' ' What belonged to him alone was his way of feeling. ' ' 
If one finds something pushing him away from his 
fellows he should never think that that something is 
religion. Instead of religion doing that kind of thing 
it does just the opposite. This witness stands for 
fellowship with aU Christians, and that fellowship is 
expressed in the weekly observance of the Lord's 
Supper in every gathering of the Disciples, when all 
Christians are invited to an equal freedom in the 
observance of the Lord's Supper in a common remem- 
brance of our common Lord. 

But I am asked. Are there not some earmarks in 
the witness of the Disciples that smack of a party? 
My answer to that is yes and no. Yes, in too many 
instances persons temperamentally partisan have given 
a sectarian interpretation to this witness, as they 
would have done had they been in any other Prot- 
estant communion or in the Roman Catholic com- 
munion, but it was a misinterpretation, however good 
the men were who made it. The witness for Christ 
can never be borne unless the spirit of Christian 
brotherhood is borne with it. One of the chief causes 



THE WITNESS 361 

of this departure among the Disciples was the spirit 
of controversy. When Alexander Campbell was first 
challenged to public debate by a Presbyterian min- 
ister, he hesitated for six months to accept the chal- 
lenge, his better and wiser nature revolting from the 
policy of public debate as a means of reconciliation 
in the divided Church, but being urged by his breth- 
ren, he accepted the challenge and afterwards he ex- 
pressed himself as favorable to it because it gave a 
wide opportunity for the disseminating of his views. 
It must be said, too, that he conducted all his debates 
upon the high plane of Christian courtesy. 

It is a grave question, however, as to the wisdom of 
this policy for two reasons: first the Disciples had 
arisen in the Presbyterian household — the Seceder 
branch of the Presbyterian Church — and had been 
forced out of that communion because of their prac- 
tice of fellowship with all Christians, which was not 
generally looked upon as kindly in that day as now. 
Some years after their separation, the Disciples ac- 
cepted immersion as the New Testament mode of bap- 
tism, which necessarily crept into most of the debates, 
separating them still further from the Presbyterians. 
While Campbell's influence in the debate may not 
have caused the reaction, nevertheless, about this 
time the Presbyterians went on record as favorable to 
sprinkling as the most desirable mode of baptism, 
which was the natural reaction of public contro- 
versies, especially for that period, when forms and 
ceremonies were as jealously guarded as though they 
were the very essence of Christianity. 

And second, Campbell's policy established a prec- 



362 WORKING WITH GOD 

edent, so tliat any number of smaller men coming 
after him thought they had attained the highest pre- 
eminence if they had held a public debate with some 
one of another communion on some doctrinal point 
and later among themselves on instrumental music in 
churches or methods of missionary work, furnishing 
a field for hard knocks and cheap wit, necessarily 
widening the chasm between the combatants and their 
followers. So general was this spirit of controversy 
among both the ministers and the members, and in 
some quarters held in such favor, that it became the 
tragedy in the witness of the Disciples, dividing their 
own household on trifling affairs and making a wall 
between themselves and other communions. It be- 
came a scandalous plague, smiting one of the greatest 
opportunities in the history of the Church. There is 
an abundance of field for controversy with the world, 
but conference and prayer — not controversy — should 
prevail among Christians. 

It was perhaps more tragic than the separation of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church from the Protestant 
Episcopal Church, in whose communion John "Wesley 
died. Had there been statesmanship in the Church of 
England and the Protestant Episcopal Church in 
America it would never have been, but the Wesleyan 
movement might have been made an honored order in 
that Church, as the Franciscans became an order in 
the Roman Catholic Church, thereby lessening divi- 
sion. The same was true regarding the Disciples. 
Had the spirit of controversy not strangled its fel- 
lowship with other communions, the whole body would 
have advanced in the task to which they had given 



THE WITNESS 363 

their witness; instead, some misunderstanding what 
they had set out to do led many into the blind alley of 
isolation. So marked was this thirty or forty years 
ago, that, when Charles Louis Loos became president 
of Kentucky University, now Transylvania College, 
Lexington, Kentucky, he was visited by a committee of 
his brethren, informing him that if he continued to 
preach as he was doing nearly every Sunday in some 
one of the pulpits of the other communions of the city, 
he would lose prestige with his own people ! It ought 
to have been just the opposite, but this is the common 
history of all movements. There has never been a 
movement, however good, that has not been led off its 
original path by some unsuspecting device of evil. 
It is a satisfaction, however, to know that this con- 
troversial and sometimes quarrelling, schismatic spirit 
is passing away, and in many quarters has long ago 
passed away, as it must do everywhere in the atmos- 
phere of Christ. 

The second part of my answer is, no, and a very 
decided no. There are no earmarks in the witness of 
the Disciples other than the earmarks of the Chris- 
tian, no one part of the New Testament being em- 
phasized more than another, but each part emphasized 
according to the occasion with the greatest freedom 
of interpretation, as well as roaming amid the facts 
and promises of the Old Testament. While there is 
no authority such as goes with bishops of dioceses or 
presbyteries, there is recognition of authority in the 
democracy, whose opinions are sought after and whose 
requests are acceded to in matters of expediency re- 
garding missionary, benevolent and educational work. 



364. WORKING WITH GOD 

There need be no further authority for having 
pledged our faith to Jesus as the Christ, He must 
rule us by His Holy Spirit in matters of human con- 
duct, both in relation to Himself and to our fellows. 
Ecclesiastical authority has been tried and under it 
the Church not only broke to pieces, but outrageously 
persecuted and sometimes murdered those who pro- 
tested. Hence we must look elsewhere for authority. 
The authority of the democracy in matters of ex- 
pediency and the authority of the Spirit in matters 
of faith and conduct are the ideals of this witness. 

Loyalty to Christ, fidelity to the Spirit and open- 
mindedness in the study of the Scriptures are alto- 
gether sufficient for the abolishing of partisan dis- 
cipleship and the establishing of a universal fellow- 
ship of all Christians. Seated in a group of profes- 
sors and clergymen at Oxford, England, during an 
evening in 1914, we had discussed many matters re- 
garding the Church, when I was asked, ''Since your 
conmiunion has the Scriptures as its only book of au- 
thority and you adhere to such a simple form of wor- 
ship, how do you develop spirituality among your 
people ? ' ' My reply was. If we have the Holy Spirit, 
the fruit of the Spirit is spirituality, which we attain 
to by the application of the Scriptures to one's life, 
teaching us all things whatsoever Christ commanded. 
This has always been the chief method to spirituality. 
The Psalmist said, ''Thy word Jiave I laid up in my 
Jieart, TJiat I migJit not sin against Thee" — ^the word 
illumined not only by the Holy Spirit, but by the ex- 
periences of the saints. 

There are hundreds of ministers among the Dis- 



THE WITNESS 365 

ciples and thousands of members who are living the 
simple Christian life and who are as cordial in their 
fellowship with other Christians as every follower of 
Christ ought to be with every other follower of Christ, 
without which Christian union can never come, for 
who wants to unite with another on some mere theo- 
logical agreement 1 It must be very pleasing to Christ 
for us to love the whole Church — all who love Him. 
It has sometimes been difficult to interpret Christian- 
ity in the terms of personal affection, but it is this 
phase of Christianity that has in it the power of con- 
quest. '^By this shall all men know that ye are My 
disciples, if ye have love one to another/' 

Francis of Assisi stood at the altar after the serv- 
ice reading from the Scriptures to his companion 
Pietro for what he called "our life and our rule.'^ 
He consulted the Bible three times in honor of the 
Trinity and each time it opened to the verses describ- 
ing the apostolic life and these passages became the 
Eule of the Brothers Minor. The passages were Mat- 
thew 19 :21, Luke 9 :l-6 and Luke 9 :23-25. These are 
wonderful in their challenge to the human soul. Per- 
haps I would have selected in association with the 
last, John 13 :35 and Matthew 28 :19, 20.* Yet were I 
to go through the Scriptures again looking for great 



*The passages are as follows: "Jesus said unto him, If thou 
wouldest be perfect, go, sell that which thou hast, and give to the 
poor, and thou shall have treasure in, heaven: and come, follow me." 
Matthew 19:21. "And he called the twelve together, and gave them 
power and authority over all demons, and to cure diseases. And He 
sent them forth to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the 
sick. And He said unto them, Take nothing for your journey, 
neither staff, nor wallet, nor bread, nor money; neither have two 
coats. And into whatsoever house ye enter, there abide, and thence 
depart. And as many as receive you not, when ye depart from that 
city, shake off the dust from your feet for a testimony against them. 
And they departed, and went throughout the villages, preaching the 



366 WORKING WITH GOD 

thoughts, I would touch other mountain tops, just as 
high as these and so it would be until I had touched 
all the facts, commands and promises, making a range 
of mountain truth up to the height of which all must 
try to climb, if we would behold the magnificence and 
glory of a redeemed world. 

The witness of the Disciples brought me to the 
Scriptures and my initiation into Christ was very 
simple — faith in Him, repentance of sin, confession of 
Him as my Lord and Saviour, baptism into Him and 
His gift to me of the Holy Spirit. I do not neces- 
sarily contend for this order, but I do for the facts 
and experiences, although the order appears to be 
Scriptural. I think these simple steps into Christ 
have been one of the explanations of the rapid growth 
of the Disciples. They are verj^ satisfying to say the 
least. Having come to Christ I have the freedom of 
His thought. I can find my teachers of this truth in 
all ages. I do not ask whether they be Protestant, 
Roman Catholic or Greek Orthodox. But are they 
Christians? Do they love one another? Have they 
the Spirit of Christ ? The first time I was at the New 
York Chautauqua, I took the place one afternoon of 
some one who was to speak at an open air meeting. 
After the services, I chanced to get into a group of 



gospel, and healing everywhere." Luke 9:1-6. "And He said unto 
all, If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself, and take 
up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whosoever would save his 
life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for My sake, the same 
shall save it. For what is a man profited, if he gain the whole world, 
and lose or forfeit his own self?" — Luke 9: 23-25. "By this shall all 
men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another." — 
John 13:35. "Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, 
baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of 
the Holy Spirit; teaching them to obser\'e all things whatsoever I 
commanded you: and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end 
cf the world." Matthew 28: 19, 20. 



THE WITNESS 367 

men who were discussing my church relation. I 
facetiously asked, What church do you think I am a 
member of? One of the group said, ''That's just 
what we've been discussing. We first thought you 
were an Episcopalian, then we thought you were a 
Presbyterian and one of our group thought you were 
a Methodist ; but, before you got through talking, we 
abandoned all our guesses, all agreeing that as far as 
we could go was to say that you are a Christian. ' ' I 
replied, ' ' You have answered wisely, for that is as far 
as I want to go. Good-bye, gentlemen. ' ' 

How the atmosphere of the early Church chal- 
lenges one to pray! I do not mean prayers that 
have in them exhortations to the people and informa- 
tion to God — those extemporaneous prayers that sweep 
around the world, indefinite and indirect speeches if 
not profane addresses to God; but the heart's cry- 
after God — a few pointed sentences that pass from 
the heart to God with some consciousness that others 
are included, until one can say with the Psalmist, 
^'Lord, all my desire is before TJiee/' 

It is only in this atmosphere that we can under- 
stand anything of the rule of Christ over us. He 
died on the cross for our sins and He arose from the 
dead for our justification. One's interpretation of 
these facts depends upon the angle from which he 
views them. I am only interested in the interpreta- 
tion as is applied to the holiness of human life. 
Henceforth the Christian has no choice. He must 
practice loving the enemy, forgiving all who wrong 
him, overcoming evil with good, bearing the cross 



368 WORKING WITH GOD 

daily, telling the Gospel and losing his life for the 
good of others. These are some of the ideals of Christ. 
There is an atmosphere in all this wide field of 
activity, like that which one reaches on coming to a 
mountain top — free to take the deepest breathing and 
sweep to the limit of an unhindered vision, free to 
roam amid the deepest experiences of the spirit until 
out of one's own experiences he learns that the holi- 
ness of God is with men. To some, one experience 
would appeal more than another, as one landscape 
lends more fascination to one beholder than to an- 
other. I mnst be tolerant in my brother 's experiences 
as I ask him to be with mine. Facts, ordinances and 
symbols have their interpretations, but God gives to 
all according to the depths within us, seeking to make 
of one brotherhood all those who desire His compan- 
ionship. I strive after that which Paul attained to 
when he said, "For me to live is Christ, and to die is 
gain/' Such is my witness and with Bernard, I sigh 
for the ideals of the New Testament Church, saying, 
''Who will grant me, before I die, to see the Church 
of God, such as she has been in the primitive times ? ' ' 



CONCLUSION 



On Duty 



I sat beside the window, looking in the sky; 

Bluebirds were singing as the clouds were passing by; 
I look'd on the garden all wet with morning dew; 

Flowers were blooming there, in variegated hue. 

I saw the multitudes as they were passing by. 
Bearing care-worn faces, as men doomed to die; 

God sent me from the window to the busy street; 
8truck the chord of service, without notes of retreat. 

Some dealt in stocks and bonds, and things we eat and wear; 

I dealt in gift of self, which only souls can bear; 
At my unseen altar love swung mystic censer; 

'Neath the upper lights souls found the great Dispenser. 

Life was helped and hope lit up the hungry face; 

Hearts found an altar and a holy breathing-space; 
God sent His living power to nourish souls sublime; 

And I, the servant, waited in the use of time. 



370 



XXI 

Twenty-fifth Anniversary Sermon* 



God is my Helper, — Psalm 54:4. 

I have not been accustomed to look back. Too many 
things are crowding into the future. But this occa- 
sion calls for a backward look through twenty-five 
years. I can hardly believe that they are years 
through which I have gone in this Baltimore min- 
istry. It seems but a few years since I preached my 
first sermon in this city, and no man ever went to a 
task so timidly as I did then. Between that time and 
this the quarter of a century intervenes. Great 
changes have occurred in the nation — in the Church — 
and in the whole world, for that matter. I am con- 
scious that I myself have changed, but I would not 
know that all these years had a place in my calendar 
if I were not to sit down and count. I had hardships, 
too keenly hard to be restated here, but I tried to 
meet them in the remembrance that ''God is my 
Helper/' Whether I lost or won I carry no unpleas- 
ant memories, rejoicing that I was counted worthy to 
suffer some little hardship in the planting of His 
Church. 



•These are only the brief notes gathered up some time after the 
delivery^ of the sermon. The evening sermon on the occasion of the 
celebration of this twenty-fifth anniversary was preached by Finis S. 
Idleman, New York City. On this day twenty-five persons made 
their decision for Christ, at the morning and evening services, and 
the offering was $1,000, 

371 



372 WORKING WITH GOD 

It is only profitable to look back in order to get 
one's bearings of how to make a better advance for- 
ward. To look through twenty-five years of the affairs 
that concern an individual, and those immediately as- 
sociated with that individual, may be confined to a 
very small compass, especially in this instance, when 
we consider the great world at large. It would be of 
no value to make so much as a mere reference to it, 
if it had not been under the eye of God, who has 
given evidence of His presence as surely as if He had 
spoken in an audible voice. That has given charm 
and romance to these years, lighting up many an in- 
cident with the glory of the morning that otherwise 
would have been tempered with the shades of night. 
I am ashamed of many things that I have done : I am 
ashamed of many things that I have left undone. Of 
the things that have been accomplished, I cannot say 
that any one is distinctively mine, for without God's 
working in those who have helped me, none of these 
things could have been done. To help to understand 
these experiences perhaps it would be wise to set 
them beside some of the experiences related in the 
Scriptures. So I shall remind you of three pictures 
with three stories, fastening to them the experiences 
of my own little life and the results that both you 
and I have shared. 

I. Jehovdh-shalom* The first picture is of a 
great oak tree in Ophrah with its rough bark and 
wide-spreading branches. Near. this tree is a large 
rock smoking as though it were on fire. Away to the 
right is an altar and by it stands a man of middle 



•Judges 6:24. 



TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY SERMON 373 

years named Gideon. Such is the picture, and the 
story is that while Gideon was thrashing his wheat 
in a secluded place under this oak to hide it from the 
Midianites an angel saluted him, to whom Gideon 
complained of the hardships that had come upon 
Israel and inquired if God was friendly. He was com- 
manded to go forth to save Israel from the Midianites. 
He hesitated to go, pleading his unworthiness. He 
was again urged to go. In half agreement he said, "If 
now I Jiave found favor in TJiy sigJit, tJien show me 
a sign that it is TJiou tJiat talkest with me," at the 
same time asking the angel to remain until he should 
bring to him a present. Hurrying away, Gideon pre- 
pared a kid and broth and unleavened bread and pre- 
sented these under the oak of Ophrah to the angel, 
who commanded him to lay them on a large rock near 
by. Then the angel touched them with his staff and in- 
stantly fire went up out of the rock, consuming the 
flesh and the unleavened cakes. In the cloud of 
smoke the angel disappeared and Gideon was left 
alone. Then he built there an altar and called it 
Jehovah-shalom, meaning, Jehovah is peace. He is at 
peace with men. 

The greatest fact in the world is the friend- 
liness of God. If this were my last message and it had 
to be compressed into a single brief sentence, that 
sentence would be, God is friendly. In spite of my 
failures and f orgetfulness of Him, and they have been 
more than I could number, nevertheless I have felt 
His friendship in my life as surely as I have that of 
an earthly friend. I know at times He appears to be 
at a distance and sometimes obscured in clouds of 



374 WORKING \\^TH GOD 

mystery and bewilderment, so that we cry out as a 
child that is lost in the dark from its parent, Where is 
God? Maybe the echo of our cry falls back upon us 
as comfortless as the deadened sound of clods upon 
the coffin lid, but even there, in the great and mysteri- 
ous silence, God is giving Himself to us. Out of the 
struggle came a strange strength and perhaps we were 
able to stand the storm of the battle; or maybe we 
went down in apparent isolation, like trees go down in 
the face of a hurricane, but in the shadow God was 
standing, trying to gather up the broken laws of 
friendship between Him and us, that Divine strength 
might supplement our weakness, as an electrician 
gathers up broken wires that electricity may flash 
down them, lighting up far distant places. No more 
commonplace sentence fell from the lips of Jesus than 
when speaking of God's thought of us He said, ^^Hie 
very Jiairs of your Jiead are all numhered/' and as 
George Macdonald said, if this were not true He 
would not be God. 

Some one asked Frederic W. H. Myers if he were 
allowed to ask only one question and knew that it 
would be answered with absolute accuracy, what would 
it be. He said, ''I would ask, Is God friendly?" The 
fact that the human heart in its imperfection cries 
after friendship with the heart of God in all its per- 
fection and holiness is an unanswerable argument of 
His friendliness. When George Borrow made a tour 
among the Welsh hills, he spent a Sunday at Chester. 
In the afternoon he visited a camp of gypsies. He 
spoke so kindly to them and was so courteous in his 
manner that the mother of the family said, ''Oh, it 



TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY SERMON 375 

was kind of your honor to come to us here in the 
Sabbath evening in order that you might bring us 
God." Borrow remonstrated with her, explaining 
that he was no priest nor minister, only a plain man, 
but the mother and the whole camp became more 
insistent, ''Oh, sir, do give us God; we need Him, 
sir, for we are a sinful people. Oh, sir, give us God ! 
Give us God!" The laws of friendship are in our 
spiritual natures as surely as the laws of gravitation 
are in the physical world. We do not approach them 
as we approach problems in geometry, for they are 
independent of the schools or the methods of the 
schools. These spiritual laws express themselves in 
common interests, common gifts of self and common 
integrity. The human heart is made for these as 
truly as the mind is made for education and in these 
lie the foundations of friendship. Mrs. Browning said 
to Charles Kingsley, "What is the secret of your 
life ? Tell me that I may make mine beautiful, too. ' ' 
He said, ' ' I had a friend. ' ' There need not have been 
any further answer, for the ministry of a great friend- 
ship is the richest gift that one can make to another. 
In this principle lies the secret of God's transforma- 
tion of human character. 

A fragmentary expression of this friendship be- 
tween God and us is seen in the friendship between 
ourselves. Cicero, Bacon and Emerson have said some 
fine things about human friendship, but that which 
has impressed me most has been the friends that God 
has given me through the years. I could never have 
done my work if I had not had friends. God has 
spoken to me through them and there is nothing finer 



376 WORKING WITH GOD 

in the world than human characters revealing God 
to others, and so revealing Him that God is better 
understood and communion with Him is made more 
easy. It was in this value of friendship that Rendall 
Harris said, "I never ask God, or hardly ever, for 
outward things ; I do not know that I ever asked Him 
for glory or honor, and I hope I never shall; and I 
very seldom ask Him for material things apart from 
the Kingdom; but I sometimes say things like this, 
that if God will give me three or four good friends, I 
think I can manage to continue to the end, because 
love is the machinery of life and the motive of power. ' ' 
The world esteems nothing more highly than genuine 
friendship and every such friendship is a proof of the 
soul 's friendship with God. 

II. JeJiovali-jireJi* The second picture is on a 
mountain top covered with scrubby oak. There 
stands a newly erected altar and by it an aged man 
with long white beard. In his hand is a knife and by 
his side stands a youth, while on the altar is the 
body of a ram, which Abraham is offering for a burnt- 
offering. You know the story too well for me to say 
more than that God commanded Abraham to offer his 
son Isaac as a burnt-offering on Mount Moriah. In 
obedience to this call with a heart depressed to ago- 
nizing grief, he imprisons the sorrow in his bosom 
and takes Isaac with him to the place of offering. As 
he was making preparation for the sacrifice and after 
he had bound Isaac for the altar, the angel of God 
eaUed to him out of heaven, "Lay not thy Jiand upon 
the lad, neither do thou anything unto him; for now 



'Genesis 22:14. 



TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY SERMON 377 

/ know tJmt thou fearest God, seeing tliou Jiast not 
witKheld tJiy son, thine only son, from me.'' Abra- 
ham unbound Isaac and near the place was a ram, 
which had been caught in the thicket by his horns. 
Abraham took him and offered him for the burnt- 
offering and called the place Jehovah-jireh, meaning 
God will provide. That is to say, God sees the need 
of His servants and will relieve that need. 

His eyes have been upon us in these years. There 
are Mount Moriahs strewed through this history — 
places and times made sacred because we knew that 
the Lord provided. It is a small part that any one of 
us has had. My own part seems so insignificant that 
I quite forget myself as I look through the history, 
for if mine was a service here and there, God has been 
so big in it all that the servants forget themselves 
in the majesty of the Master. When I have preached 
from this desk, pleading for holiness among Chris- 
tians and offering salvation to the lost, my words at 
best were feeble and unsatisfactory, but when some of 
you said to me afterwards, ' * I think I can live better 
now" and others said, ^'I believe now that Jesus is 
the Christ," then I knew that God was here and His 
Holy Spirit was working with the hearts of those to 
whom I had preached. 

When we undertook to do things, there was a will- 
ingness that brought a challenge to the indifferent 
and you worked, you gave, you prayed and you made 
the task holy because you had turned your faces 
toward God in the doing of it. Then others became 
weary and dropped out, but lest others should be 
thereby discouraged at the loss of even one, God 



378 WORKING WITH GOD 

brought new courage into the hearts of the faithful 
and the work was done. I have sometimes thought 
that God must have looked upon this little field with 
His sympathetic care as the florist looks upon some 
little corner of his garden, working it and watering 
it until the backward plants get strength in their 
fibre and begin to bloom. 

We never want to indulge the thought that God is 
absent. He cannot be away from His own. *^Lo, I 
am witTi you alwoAjs'^ is a fundamental principle in 
the religion of Christ. His presence makes us try to 
be careful in our speech and conduct and try to be 
sincere and faithful in doing something to help Him 
in the permanency of righteousness among men. We 
have fought with our thoughts when troops of iniquity 
seem to hold high carnival in our minds, and the mas- 
tership only came when the consciousness of God's 
presence stole back on us and claimed its right to il- 
lumine our thinking, as the sun without obstruction 
ascends the sky with its radiant light. His Di\dne 
presence has given joy and peace, quickening our 
claim to heirship with God and joint-heirship with 
Jesus. 

There is no good thing in our personal experiences 
but that God has provided ; there is no open door in 
the conflict with temptation but God set it there ; there 
is no hope of a better life, but God kindled the fires. 
His providence is over the cradle and clings to that 
human life closer than a mother clings to her child. 
Forgetting our own belongs to the human mind ; God 
can not forget His children who believe that their 
paths are ordered of Him and that there are no paths 



TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY SERMON 379 

without the presence of God upon them. Whether it 
be untrodden by human foot or not, there may be a 
flower or the strata of a rock, proclaiming God is 
there. 

' ' No pebble at my feet but proves a sphere ; 
No Chaffinch but implies the Cherubim ; 
No hum of lily-mufBed bee but finds 
Some coupling music with the spinning stars. 

Earth's crammed with heaven, 
And every common bush afire with God; 
But only those who see take off their shoes, 
The rest sit round it and eat blackberries. ' ' 

III. JeJiovah-nisi* The third picture has in the 
distance Mount Sinai lifting its cold head under the 
gray sky. Here are the hosts of Israel on one side and 
on the other a fleeing army. In the foreground of 
the picture is an altar and by it Moses stands with up- 
lifted hand. It is the story of Amalek forbidding the 
advance of the Israelites at Eephidim, and Moses goes 
on the hill with the rod of God in his hand. When 
Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed; when he 
let down his hand, Amalek prevailed; so Moses sat 
upon a stone and Aaron and Hur held up his hands 
until sunset, and Israel was victorious. Moses built 
an altar there and called it Jehovah-nisi, meaning 
Jehovah is my banner. That is to say, God has done 
it and I swear with uplifted hand fidelity to Him for- 
ever. On the occasion of all victories God sets up His 
banner. To-day as we look back we must say that the 
Lord did this. Such times are occasions for renewal of 
covenants and this day in particular has in it a call to 
all who have found Christ here to make this memorable 
in the renewal of our covenants, with the uplifted 



*Exodiis 17:15. 



380 WORKING WITH GOD 

hand of faith to pledge ourselves to Christ, who is 
the helper of us all. 

We have been a free people here. The spirit of 
democracy has characterized this work. There has 
been no ruling by cliques or f a<itions pulling against 
other factions. The humblest has always had courtesy 
in counsel and the most efficient has not been exalted 
over the least. We have a united church and there is 
not a home in all this circle that has not my affection, 
besides many who crowd here to-day of other churches 
and some of no church at all. I have been your servant 
with never a day when all my work was done — a poor 
servant, but I have humbly sought to serve you in the 
name of Christ. In all these years there has been no 
freer place in the land than this pulpit. I have never 
preached a sermon to please any one and I have never 
held back truth for fear it would hurt some who sat 
before me. I have tried to please God and to keep in 
mind that I would have to give an account in the last 
day to Him of my entire ministry and especially my 
public attempt to proclaim His G-ospel. I have con- 
tinually asked Him for clear vision to see the truth 
and to pardon whatever errors may have crept into 
my thinking, for above all other desires has been my 
desire to reveal Christ to my fellows both by my 
speech and conduct. Yet I hesitate to name this pas- 
sion of my heart in the remembrance of how far 
short I have come of it. Nevertheless, I have lived, 
I have spoken ; both my life and speech have gone into 
these years. God shall judge. Before Him I hide 
nothing. Whatever there has been of worth, He will 



TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY SERMON 381 

honor ; whatever has been unworthy and dishonorable 
He will pardon, and I await His judgment. 

The currents of life are strong. With the best 
of intentions we have not always done our best. It is 
easy to live below the ideal and still easier to say 
within our hearts, It is too hard and '^God will not 
require it/' Social obligations, business responsibil- 
ities and love of ease crowd out prayer and make the 
Bible as a little idol on our tables, to be looked at, 
now and then read hurriedly and all our souls locked 
against the truths for want of time 1 "We are stunned 
by war, the ravages of the liquor traffic, the greed for 
money and all that goes with these. The chill of one 
heart towards another almost freezes the blood in the 
veins of the oppressed, who can scarcely bear their 
burdens through another day, which they would rather 
be the day of their death, than living a life with the 
sweat of death daily upon their brows. I know some 
of the world's problems and I have tried to stand in 
the shadow with some of those who have known only 
the dark. Never has there been a greater day in 
which to live, for the whole world is alive with hope 
for better things. It is the voice from all sorts of 
organizations, in all the tongues of the world, shout- 
ing into your ears for help. If the Church does not 
meet this opportunity in meekness and gentleness and 
love for all mankind in terms of personal affection 
rather than theology or philosophy, she will receive 
an awful judgment at the hands of the rising genera- 
tion, who are speaking across the seas and in our 
great cities in many languages, and to whom we have 
not yet found an access. 



382 WORKING WITH GOD 

These are serious times in which to live. Our op- 
portunities were never so widely opened before us. 
It applies to us here to-day as well as to the whole 
Church at large. As grave as were our fathers ' prob- 
lems, ours are graver. We cannot dodge the responsi- 
bility except with disastrous loss to ourselves and the 
trust which has been committed to us. God depends 
upon us for certain work to be done. He gives us the 
light ; He opens the door ; He commands us to go and 
reminds us that He is our Helper. What more do we 
want? What more could we want? The whole uni- 
verse trembles with possibilities and beats against us 
like the breezes on our cheeks. 

The hour of God is here. If we would do that 
which our hearts desire most to be done, who of us 
would not find God's altar now and lay upon it the 
sacrament of friendship, trust and fidelity? By the 
altars of Gideon, Abraham and Moses, erect your al- 
tars. Make a picture no less beautiful than these, fas- 
tening to it a history like theirs, which if not known 
here on earth, we shall some day hear the angels tell 
it along with the stories of Gideon, Abraham and 
Moses. The woman who dropped her mite in the box 
and the woman who anointed the feet of Jesus ren- 
dered trifling services in the eyes of a proud world, 
but Jesus lifted their acts above the conduct of kings 
and queens. None of us is so humble that what we 
do shall pass unseen and His remembrance of the least 
done in the name of Jesus will give a lustre to their 
lives. 

Our faces must be to the future. Our love must 
be for all. There can be no problem that concerns 



TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY SERMON 383 

the least in our circle but must concern us. We are 
members one of another. The House of God is in 
course of construction. Every day each one of us is 
helping in the building. The materials of faith, cour- 
age, humility, sacrifice, comradeship, trust, self-con- 
trol, must have place in our hearts if indifference to 
God, love of pleasure, extravagance, social injustice, 
intemperance, lust, greed for gold, divorce, sectarian- 
ism, war and all that follows these are to be thrust off 
the doorsteps of this civilization in preparation for 
other problems that shall greet the rising generation. 

*'For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, 
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would 
be; 

"Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, 
Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly 
bales ; 

*' Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained a 
ghastly dew 
From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue. 

"Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing 
warm. 
With the standards of the people plunging thro' the thun- 
derstorm ; 

"Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle-flags 
were furPd 
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world. 

"There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm 
in awe, 
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law. ' ' 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: April 2006 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATIOt 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township. PA 16066 



